HISTORY 



OF THE 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY, 



FAITHFUL RECORD OF ALL LMPORTANT EVENTS, INCI- 
DENTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT HAVE TRANS- 
PIRED IN THE VALLEY OF THE CHIPPEWA FROM 
ITS EARLIEST SETTLEMENT BY WHITE PEO- 
PLE, INDIAN TREATIES, ORGANIZATION OF 
THE TERRITORY AND STATE ; ALSO OF 
THE COUNTIES EMBRACING THE 
VALLEY, SENATORIAL, ASSEM- 
BLY AND CONGRESSIONAL 
DISTRICTS, &c. 

ALSO A BRIEF 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE MOST PROMINENT PER- 
SONS IN THE SETTLEMENT OP 
THE VALLEY, 



-BY- 



THOMAS E. RANDALL. 



1875: 
FREE PRESS PRINT, 

KAU CLAIRE. V7I?. 



PREFACE. 

When this work was commenced as a contribution to the columns of 
the Free Press, it was not with the expectation of making a book, nor 
were the difficulties, and labor, of gathering the materials and connecting 
the facts — of determining what should be included in, and what excluded 
from such a work — fully realized. 

The first settlers in a new country find little time or inclination to 
record even the most stirring events in journals and diaries, and hence 
many are very reluctant when called upon to make statements in regard 
to circumstances with which they are known to have been perfectly 
familiar. Others too, when applied to for information can remember 
nothing, except what pertained exclusively to themselves, and seem to 
consider all else as unworthy of record ; and others still so modest that 
it has been difficult to prevail upon them to relate such things in their 
experiences as have been deemed essential to this work. 

Of the many parties appealed to, to furnish the data on which many 
of the facts herein set forth, are founded, I cannot withhold the names 
•of Hiram S. Allen, of Chippewa Falls, and Rev. Dr. Alfred Brunson, 
^of Prairie du Chien, as gentlemen, whose interest in, and efforts to pro- 
mote the objects I had in view, have afforded me much satisfaction and 
encouragement, and whose kindness and assistance will ever be remem- 
bered with heart felt gratitude. 

The favorable notices of the Newspaper Press in this part of the 
State, and the flattering reception which the work found at the hands of 
the State Historical Society, and several of its learned members, together 
with numerous and repeated demands of the public, having responded 
liberally in subscribing for the work have induced me to republish it in a 
form better adapted to its preservation and the wants of the student of 
history. Trusting that some little service has been rendered to the cause 
of science, and that some events have been redeemed from oblivion which 
would otherwise have been lost to history for which posterity will feei 
grateful and conscious that in this my labor is not in vain. I submit 
this'work to a generous public. 

The Authoe. 



HISTORY OF THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY. 



From the Daily Free Press. 

We commence to-day the publication of a series of letters concerning 
the Chippewa Valley, which, when finished, will be a minute and full 
sketch of all incidents worthy of note, from the advent of the first white 
settler until the present date. It is true that some of the most impor- 
tant facts connected therewith have already become a part of the written 
history of the country, but still there remains much that is traditionary, 
only treasured in the minds of the oldest settlers, to be recalled at their 
semi-occasional gatherings. It is this class of matter that the author 
win weave into narrative. 

We are glad, too, that it is to be done, for this valley is bound to bear 
an important part in the history of the State ; hence it is fit that all 
those matters incident to the early trials and hardships of the settlers,^ 
and the development of the country become matters of record. 

We need not say what is so well known hereabouts, that the gentle- 
man who has undertaken it, Mr. T. E. Randall, better known as 
" Uncle Tom Randall," is just the man to accomplish the work. Com- 
ing here as he did in 1845, possessed of large observation and a 
retentive memory, it will readily be preceived that bis own knowledge 
will grasp a large portion of this time. H. S. Allen, Alfred Brunflon, and 
others, furnish the matter with which he is not conversant ; hence, the 
narrative may be relied upon as correct in all essential details. And, too, 
in a literary point of view, Mr. Randall is not altogether unfitted for the 
task. Although he is a self-made man, and has been a hard working 
one all his life, he is an extensive reader, a clear thinker, possesses 
eminent good-sense, and his frequent contributions to the public presB 
denotes him not devoid of literary excellence. This, however, we will 
not discuss, but let the reader judge for himself. Of this, all may be 
assured, that his contributions will possess the rare merit of accuracy and. 
nice delineation of occurrence, so much desired in productions of this 

character. 

The one which appears to-day is merely introductory. They will all 
be published first in the Daily, and then reproduced in the Weekly. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The close of the Black Hawk War, so called, and the extinction of 
the Indian title to the rich prairie lands in Northern Illinois, Southern 
"Wisconsin, and West of the Mississippi in what is now Iowa, gave a new 
impulse to eastern emigration, and from Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, could 
be seen long lines of "prairie schooners," their white canvass tops 
shining in the summer sun, filled with tired mothers and towhead 
children, and followed by droves of cattle, sheep and hogs, and on horse- 
back boys andrgirls bringing up the rear, bound to "Black Hawk's 
purchase," while over the Lakes come pouring out from New York and 
New England a new installment of the restless but enterprising sons and 
daughters of the Pilgrims, as if bound to take possession of all the 
territory promised and guaranteed to their fathers by the British King, 
in a certain charter granting within certain parallels all the lands to the 
great " Southern (Pacific) Ocean." 

The banks of the "Father of Waters" soon swarmed with these 
hardy adventurers, and towns and villages sprang up as if by magic, 
■while the virgin prairies in their rear gave evidence of their boundless 
fertility in the most exuberant crops of golden grain, the lead and coal 
mines gave up their long-hidden wealth and commerce, manufactures, 
science and the arts began to flourish. But no single locality or section 
4)f ceuQtry posessses all the advantages. Nature reserves something 



U INTRODUCTION 

for all, and as no man is so vile but that we can discover some good 
traits in him, so no region is so destitute but we can find some "bounty 
lavished upon it from Nature's ample store house ; and as the best men 
have some faults, so the richest countries lack some element essential to 
human wants. 

And thus it was with the rich and fertile "West. With all its vast 
agricultural and mineral wealth, it lacked lumber to fence its fields, store 
its grain, or build its farm-houses and barns. 

The scarcity and high price of this commodity was for many years a 
serious drawback to the progress of the farmers of Illinois, Missouri and 
Iowa, and a large share of that used in the erection of the first houses built 
in Burlington, Muscatine, Davenport, Rock Island, Galena, and Dubu- 
que, came from the Alleghany river, by raft to Cincinnati, thence by 
steamboat to its destination, and sold at ^75 to ^100 per 1,000 feet. 
And in the summer season, long lines of wagons, each drawn by six yoke 
of oxen, and laden with whitewood lumber from the Wabash country, 
could be seen winding over the prairies, and across the sloughs and rivers 
of Illinois, their drivers mounted ten feet high on the clear, white lumber, 
and cracking their long "sucker whips " over the lolling oxen, as they 
floundered on over quagmire, marsh a«d bottomless flag-pits to the far-off 
embryo villages of Iowa ; and these were the only available supplies of 
lumber for all that timberless region. 

But, as through nature's handiworks, there is no want of anybody or 
anything without an adequate supply, so the allwise Creator has so 
arranged that these treeless but luxuriant and smiling prairies 
of the West shall have a bounteous supply of pine, away up in the frozen 
regions of the North, with the current of a hundred streams to bear it on 
to that wonderful river on whose bosom for two thousand miles floated 
the commerce of the West. 

No wonder then that the moment, or even before, the GoTcrnment 
had extinguished the Indian title, swarms of adventurous Yankees, 
brought up to the lumbering business, rushed up these rivers, out upon 
these hitherto unscathed forests, and, with axe, saw and cable, com- 
menced the business that in a few years assumed gigantic dimensions, and 
now employs a very large share of the capital and industry of our grow- 
ing State. 

The struggles and hardships encountered by the pioneers in the 
settlement of any new country bring them into very close — almost fra- 
ternal — relations with each other ; and a common interest and common 



INTRODUCTION 7 

dependence is felt, even though separated by long distances, which, in 
their eagerness to secure the best natural positions, is seldom taken into 
account. Especially was it so with the settlers in this valley ; the great 
expense and difficulty in getting here ; their utter isolation — shut out for 
several months in the year from aU intercourse or correspondence witli 
the outside world — their nearest post-office at Prairie du Chien. three 
hundred miles away ; the wihter's supplies frequently running so low 
that every pound was distributed — those who had much lending to those 
who had none — without any possibility of replenishing until a boat came 
up in the spring ; the immediate presence of powerful and sometimen 
turbulent and hostile bands of Indians on the north and west ; the 
reckless and abandoned character of some of the immigrants ; the total 
absence of legal and social restraint ; all conspired to make every event 
of this early period full of interest to those who, coming at a later day, 
know nothing of those vicissitudes and esperienceg. 

Having migrated to the valley at a comparatively early day, and 
becoming intimately acquainted with all the first settlers, and with most 
of the noteworthy events, scenes, circumstances and incidents attending 
our incipient settlement and civilization, and being importuned by several 
ladies of this city, whose request I could not be so ungallant as to refuse, 
I have concluded to furnish for the columns of the Free Press a reliable 
and as readable a sketch of our Valley's history as my time and ability 
will enable me to accomplish, although, to tell the truth, I feel it to be a 
very difficult task, from the fact that many abler pens than mine have at 
difierent times given detached portions of these narrations to the public, 
in writing up the business of our flourishing villages through the 
respective journals in whose interests they wrote. But 1 hope, not- 
"withstanding, by grouping together all the facts and incidents into one 
continuous story, to make it both instructive and amusing. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEjY HISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

la the spring of the year 1828, James H. Lockwood, afterward better 
known as Judge Lockwood, an Indian fur trader, and General Street, of 
the United States army, Indian Agent at Fr-rt Crawford, obtained a 
permit from the great chief Wabashaw, of Wabashaw's band of Sioux 
Indians, and also from the chiefs of the Chippewa band that claimed 
tlie lands on the Chippewa and Red Cedar (now Menomonie) rivers to 
cut. pine timber, to occupy a certain tract of land, and to build a saw- 
ni!!l thereou, in consideration of certain articles of merchandise, blankets, 
Itoids, whisky, etc., to be paid annually in July to the former at 
AVibashaw's Prairie, now Winona, and to the latter at the mill to be 
})U!lt on the lands leased. The sanction of Goverment was also obtained 
ar.i under this arrangement the aforesaid parties flitted out an 
e-spedition, and erected a saw-mill on Wilson's creek, a short distance 
from its confluence with the Red Cedar. This was the fiirst mill built 
in the Chippewa Valley, and its site is now the west-side center of 
of Menomonie Village. 

At this time, and for several years subsequently, the above-named 
band of Sioux claimed the delta of the Chippewa and the territory 
lying between the Mississippi and Red Cedar rivers, but it was really 
the neutral or dark and bloody ground between the two great hostile 
tribes of Sioux and Chippewas. At this time, too, all the territory 
comprised in the States of Iowa, Minnesota, northern half of Illinois, 
Wisconsin, nearly all of Michigan, and parts of Ohio and Indiana, was 
licld by various tribes of Indians. 

Military posts were established at Fort Madison, in what is now Leo 
county, Iowa, at Fort Armstrong, on Rock Islands at Fort Crawford, at 
Prairie du Chien, and at Green Bay and Chicago. Goverment agencies 
and Indian trading-posts existed at all these and many other places in 
the Northwest. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 9" 

The writer was personally acquainted with several of the agents and 
fur traders of that early period, including Col. George Danvenport, of 
Rock Island, who was the victim of a murderous conspiracy in 1843, H. 
L. Douseman, of Prairie du Chien, and one of the Beaubeins, of 
"Chicago. < 

And here I am tempted to digress a moment, to relate an episode in 
the life of those two brothers whose names arc well known as the 
founders of that famous city, as related by one of them in my presence 
in 1837, while he, in company with one of the Railroad Commissioners 
for the State of Illinois, was on a visit to the camp of a surveying party 
to which I was then attached, and engaged in locating the old Illinois 
•Central Railroad, H. P. Woodworth, formerly a professor in the Nor- 
wich University, Vermont, being in charge. Many anecdotes concern- 
ing these brothers have been told in the early Chicago journals, but I do 
not think this was ever made public. Beaubein's English was very 
imperfect, but I will give it as near as I can remember in his own words : 

" Out in the direction of widow Barry's Point my brother and I had 
raised a field of oats to feed our ponies ; wc had a cabin near it to sleep 
in. In the fall before war broke out, we went to trash dem with flails, 
had cleaned off a bit of prairie for a floor, and began to pound out de 
oats. By-and-by we zee three Injuns coming on dere ponies ; we not 
inow den dcy tink to make for war. Dey were Sacs, and came from 
!big war-dance and council of braves. By-and-by dey want whiskey ; 
we say, ' Have none,' — in Indian — ' all gone.' Den dey speak very bold 
and saucee, and say, ' We burn you' wigwam, an' take you' ponies, and 
kill you.' Den, quick as flash, my brother look at me an' I at him, an' 
{^rising to his feet, and motioning his cane in the attitude of threshing) 
me trash an' he trash, an' one Injun he get on his pony an' march on, 
but two of dem would never go for ride any more. Den we were scare, 
'fraid, an' get on our ponies for ride to de fort. Den we were 'fraid an' 
no go for oats ver' soon ; den some soldiers go, but find all burnt ; no 
oats, no cabin, no Injuns, but den we knew war would come." 

Prairie du Chien — with the exception of Green Bay — the oldest set- 
tlement in the Northwest, was, in 1820, selected by the American Fur 
Company as its headquarters on the Upper Mississippi, and the Govern- 
ment had established a military post there, occupying at first the same 
fort occupied by the British troops in 1813, '14 and '15, who, having 
established a sort of military government at Green Bay, took formal 
possession of the country ; one Rolette, a French Canadian voyageur, of 
Prairie du Chijii, being employed to pilot them up the Fox and down the 



10 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Wisconsin Rivers, receiving therefor ^20,000 in British gold — so says 
report. One account says the British held this post until 1816, when it 
was formally surrendered to the United States. 

The commerce of the Upper Mississippi at this time (1828), though 
considerable in furs, skins and goods for the Indian trade, was unequal 
to the support of regular steamboat navigation, and only when Govern- 
ment forwarded military stores on boats chartered for the purpose, could 
passage or freight be secured to those upper regions. The steamboat, 
Warrior, so famous for the part she took in the battle of the Badaxe in 
1832, was thus employed in carrying troops and military stores, and by 
the vigilance of her commander. Captain Throckmorton, was at the pre- 
cise point required when the fugitive bands of Sacs and Foxes came to 
the river — hotly pursued by our brave Suckers and Regulars — first 
reaching the bank where the village of A'^ictory now stands. 

The British and American fur companies have always used two kinds 
of river crafts for the transportation of freight; on all the upper 
branches the inevitable canoe adapted to rapids and shallow waters. 
But on the Mississippi and lower branches of all its tributaries, the 
"Keel Boat" had been in use until the increased volume of business 
warranted its [supercedure by steam boats. These boats were 
constructed much like an ordinary barge, but shallower and provided 
with running boards on each side ; their carrying capacity varied from 
seven to twenty tons, the large class usually manned by fourteen men, 
six on each side, with poles which constituted the propelling power, a 
helmsman and a cook, with sometimes a sub-agent of the company as 
supercargo. 

A large number of these boats were put in requisition by the American 
Fur Company, some of the largest of which descended to St. Louis and 
made regular trips between that place and Prairie du Chien, occupying 
40 to 50 days for each trip, cordeling over the Upper and Lower Rapids 
on their return against the current. The cargo consisted of goods for 
the Indian trade and supplies for the varioue trading posts above, to 
which the goods were re-distributed from the latter place, the head- 
quarters for the upper Mississippi. These boats were usually manned 
by Canadian French and half-breads, [called "voygeurs," under the 
supervision of some active, intelligent sub-agent or interested trader, and 
at the time of which we are speaking, 1828, one of the most trusted 
and energetic of the company's agents was Jean Brunett, (John Brunie) 
a native of France, emigrated and came to St. Louis in 1818, was some 
time in the service of Chateau Brothers, and transferred in 1820 to 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 11 

Prairie du Chien, where he subsequently married a sister of the Rolette 
before named. He and several of his employes will find a prominent 
place in these pages as the first settlers at Chippewa Falls. 

It was this class of men, together with discharged soldiers, who 
were employed to "boat the supplies, assist in building the mills and. make 
the first lumber manufactured in the valley, at the mill before spoken of- 
An ex-Lieutenant of the regular army, aamed Greorge Wales, was placed 
in charge, and continued to conduct the business for the Company, 
Street & Lockwood, until 1835, and in the mean time had erected, for the 
same parties, another mill on what is now known as "Gilbert's Creek," 
a mile or so from its mouth and two miles below the first named. 
Who the millwrights were that planned and executed the millwright-work 
in the mill I have not been able to learn. It was to these mills that 
young Lieutenant Jefi"erson Davis is said to have been dispatched for 
lumber to rebuild Fort Crawford. An amusing incident is related by 
several of the old soldiers who were with Davis and some officers on one 
of these trips for lumber. The order had been filled at the mill, the 
lumber rafted down the Red Cedar in strings to the Chippewa, all safely 
coupled up, and an old voyageur shipped as pilot, the officer and all 
hands leaped on board, and all went well until they neared the head of 
Reef Slough. " To de right, hard," said the old Frenchman. " What's 
that, you villain?" said the West Pointer, "you're going to run thjs 
raft right to hell ? I tell you to pull to the left where the main river 
is." It was done, and the lumber lost in Reef Slough, as the channel 
was efi"ectuaUy blocked with drift wood. The crew returned for more 
lumber, but the officers returned to Fort Crawford, in a canoe, and re- 
ported the raft as broken. 

In 1835, Messrs. Street & Lockwood sold both these mills to H. S. 
Allen, with the permit from the Indians, together with all the teams, 
tools and all the appurtenances, who, on his part, agreed to fulfill all 
obligations they were under to the Indians. The consideration was 
made payable in lumber, at thirty dollars a thousand, in annual install- 
ments. This gentleman was of New England stock ; came from Ver- 
mont, first to Gralena, thence to Menomoniein 1834, and commenced the 
business of getting out logs and square timber, but soon discovered that 
without booms in which to secure logs near the Mississippi they must be 
sarwed into lumber here, in order to a successful prosecution of the busi- 
ness, and therefore accepted the Company's ofier to sell, with alacrity^ 
although his means were very limited. Rut to good business qualifica- 
tions he added untiring energy, economy and unflinching perseverance. 



12 CUIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

and nothing short of unparalleled misfortunes has prevented his acquir- 
ing all his ambition aspired to. 

Lieutenant, or Captain Wales, as he was called, on retiring from the 
management of these mills, passed over to Eau Galle and built a mill on 
the site where the present mill, now owned by Messrs. Carson & Rand, 
stands. He was educated at West Point, possessed every business 
capacity, but had contracted dissolute and extravagant habits, had 
picked up a woman in Baton Rouge, while quartered in that city, whom 
he brought to the pineries with him, but whether they were married is 
not known. Four children, however, were the result of their connec- 
tion, and she was probably the first white woman that ever came into 
this valley, and will be the subject of further comment. 



CHAPTER 11, 



The settler on any of our western prairies, and the axemen who 
enter upon the primeval forests, where no mark or sign of man's 
destructive force or redeeming power is seen or felt, is frequently the 
subject of strange reflections as he follows his plow, turning up the virgin 
soil that through all the ages has remained undisturbed, or hews down 
the stately pine, that for a thousand years has flourished and grown, 
unnoticed and uncared for by the hand of man, he wonders how it 
occurs that he, of all the people that have lived and still live on the face 
of the earth, swarming, as it does, with so many millions, should be the 
first to appropriate to his comfort and convenience the blessings so long 
held in reserve in Nature's vast store-house. 

He wonders, too, why his race should require all the resources of earth, 
the productions]of forests, mines, rivers, lakes, oceans — of the soil plowed, 
planted, cultured, and garnered ; the flocks and herds, feeding and 
gamboling on a thousand hills — for his subsistence, while other races 
have remained from generation to generation in all the untamed wUdness 
of the wild deer and elk on which they subsist. What of the race that 
but yesterday was here ! Have these rivers, fields, and forest, now so 
peaceful, always been so calm and still? or have they, like the old world, 
been the scene of some savage and sanguinary conflict ? We speculate 
in vain on the long-ago dwellers upon the banks of these pleasant streams ; 
their war-dance and savage yella may have been the only sound that ever 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 13 

waked the stillness of these hills, or a race long since extinct may have 
plowed and sowed, and builded, and loved, and worshiped, and cultivated 
all the graces and amenities of civilized life, but the records of whose 
deeds and virtues have been obliterated by the convulsions of Time's- 
relentless changes. Of the race whose steps are now fast receding and 
giving place to ours, we know comparatively little, as traditions, and 
their history written for the past two hundred years by foreigneers, is 
very imperfect. A brief account of the Indians who once claimed this 
valley, will be the subject of this chapter. 

The Chippewas, whose name our river bears, were considered by the 
French missionaries as the bravest, most war-like, and, at the same time, 
the noblest and most manly of all the tribes on the American continent. 
They were derived from the Algonquin race, or type, and were first met 
with by the French on the Chippewa river near Montreal, Canada, in 
1642, and were immediately taken into alliance with them (political), 
but matrimonial alliances soon followed, and their relations became very 
intimate. The Jesuit missionaries speak of the language of the Chippewas 
as the most refined and complete of any Indian tongue. Their territory 
seems to have been confined at that time to what is now the New Domin- 
ion, and the lower peninsula of Michigan. 

Of the Sioux or Dakotas, still less is known of their history, at the 
time of which we are speaking, 1642, they seem to have been in posses- 
sion of all the territory south of Lake Superior, west of Lakes Huron and 
Michigan, south as far as Milwaukee, and west to, or even beyond the Mis- 
souri river, for at this period they took a Jesuit priest prisoner at Sault 
( Sue) St. Mary's, and killed him as an intruder on their territory. And in 
1660, the Jesuits having established a mission at La Point, on Magdalen 
Island, Lake Superior, were driven ofi" by the Sioux, (Wis. Hist. Col.,, 
vol. 4, p. 226). Soon after this, probably in 1670, the Chippewas com- 
menced their inroads upon the territory of the Sioux on the north and 
east, and fought their way south and west to the lines hereinafter de- 
scribed. 

In the mean time the Winnebagoes, a migatory tribe from Mexico, to 
escape the Spaniards came among the Sioux, who gave them lands near 
Green Bay, probably to shield themselves from the Chippewas. But the 
Sacks and Foxes came up from the South and took forcible possession of 
their territory and compelled them to "go West," and they in turn were 
crowded out by the Menomonies. 

In consequence of these immigrations and predatory wars the claims of 
the several Indian nations to their respective territories became very com- 



14 CHIPPMWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

plicated and the cause of almost incessant wars amongst then. To pre- 
vent this as much as possible the United States governmi^nt, in 1825, 
authorized a general treaty to be held at Prairie du Chien between all 
the Indian tribes within a district of five hundred miles eacii way. This 
joint treaty, was signed on the part of the Government ))y Generals 
William Clark and Lewis Cass, and by Wabash aw and Red Wing, Little 
Crow and twenty-three other Chiefs and braves of the Sioux, and by 
Hole-in-the-day and forty other Chiefs and braves on the part of the 
Chippewas. The names of the other chiefs are ommitted as unnecessary 
and not specially interesting to my readers. To fix the boundaries be- 
tween the various nations definitely was the first and principal object of 
this treaty. The eastern boundary of the Sioux commenced opposite the 
mouth of the Iowa river on the Mississippi, runs back two or three miles 
t > the bluffs, following the bluffs to, and crossing Bad-axe to Black river, 
from which point the line described is the boundary between the Sioux 
and Winnebagoes, and extends in a direction nearly north to a point on 
the Chippewa river, half a days march from Chippewa Falls, (U. S. 
Statutes at large, vol. 7, Indian Treaties, art. 5, page 273.) From this 
pDint on the Chippewa which was fixed at or near the mouth of Mud 
Creek (near llurasey's Landing,) the line becomes the boundary between 
the Sioux and Chippewas, and runs to the Red Cedar river, just below 
the Falls, from thence to the St. Croix river at a place called the Stand- 
ing Cedar, about a day's paddle in a canoe above the Lake on that river, 
thence passing between two lakes called by the Chippewas "Green Lakes," 
and by the Sioux " The lake they bury the eagles in," from thence to 
the " Standing Cedar " that the Sioux split, and thence to the mouth of 
Rum river, on the Mississippi, (ibid.) The boundary line between 
the Chippewas and Winnebagoes was also defined at this treaty, as com- 
mencing at this same point on the Chippewa river, half a day's march 
below the Falls, and thence to the source of the Clear Water, (Eau 
Claire, ) a branch of the Chippewa, thence south to Black river, thence 
to a point where the woods project into the meadows, and thence to the 
Plover Portage of the Wisconsin, (Ibid. art. 7. p. 274.) 

Thus we see the boundaries of the Sioux, Chippewas and Winneba- 
goes, were brought to a point at the famous half a day's march below the 
Falls; we see also that the permit granted Street & Lockwood, and 
mentioned in the preceding chapter, was entirely within the limits of 
Sioux territory, unless they had occasion to go above the Falls, on the 
Red Cedar, which was not the case as an abundance of pine was found 
near by on the creeks that drove those milb. 



CHIPPEWA VALLKY HISTORY. 15 

The boundaries above described were pretty carcfally observed by the 
respective parties to the treaty aforesaid, except when war parties were 
fitted out by the Sioux or Chippewas, (the Winnebagnos remained per- 
fectly neutral, ) when the intervening territory between the Mississippi 
and the first described boundary became the theatre of many a hard 
fought battle, and hunting here was regarded as very unsafe by all three 
of those tribes. 

On the 29th day of July, 1837, at Ft. Snelling, Gov. Dodge on the 
part of the United States, and Hole-in-the-day with forty-seven other 
Chiefs and braves, on the part of the Chippewas, signed a treaty ceding 
to the United States, land as follows : Beginning at the confluence of 
the Crow Wing and Mississippi rivers, and running to the north point of 
Lake St. (Jroix, one of the sources of the river of that name, thence 
along the dividing ridge between the waters of Lake Superior, and those 
of the Mississippi to the source of the Ocha-sua-sepe, (Court Ourilles,) 
a tributary of the Chippewa river, thence to a point on the river twenty 
miles belovv the outlet of Lake de Flambeau, thence to the confluence of 
the Wisconsin and Pelican rivers, and thence by various points named, to 
Plover Portage, thence back along the boundary between the Winneba- 
goes and Chippewas, to a point on that river half a day's march below 
the Falls, thence to the mouth of Rum river and up the Mississippi to 
the place of beginning, (ibid, p. 536.) 

On the 29th of September, the same year, (1837,) at Washington 
City, D. C, Joel R. Poinsett, Secretary of War, on the part of the 
United States, and Big Thunder with twenty other Chiefs, and braves on 
the part of the Sioux, made a treaty, when the latter ceded to the United 
States all their lands east of the Mississippi, and all their islands in said 
river, (ibid, p. 538.) 

On the 4th day of October, 1842, at La Point in Lake Superior, 
Robert Stewart on the part of the United States, and Po-go-ne-ge-shik 
with forty other Chiefs and braves of the Chippewas held a treaty, at 
which all the Chippewa lands in Wisconsin were ceded to the United 
States, (ibid, p. 591.) 

It is proper to state, however, that immediately subsequent to the ces- 
sion of the last named lands, several bands of the Chippewas became 
very much dissatisfied with the treaty, and with the reservation set apart 
for them above Sand Lake, in Minnesota, and begged so hard to come 
back, that the Government, in 1854, gave them back several townships, 
and half townships of the land on the Court Ourilles, and some other 
branches of the Chippewa river, and established an agency there for the 



16 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

distribution of part of the annuities promised them by the terms of the 
treaty, as consideration for the value of their lands. 

One thing will strike the reader as remarkable in regard to the treaty 
of 1825, namely : the geographical accuracy with which the boundaries 
between the tribes are defined, especially when we consider that eleven 
years later when Congress annexed the northern peninsula to Michigan,, 
the maps of these territories were so imperfect that great difficulty arose 
in defining the boundary between that State and this. 



CHAPTER III. 

Until the year 1836, the territory now composing the State of Wis- 
consin composed a part of the Territory of Michigan, but in that year 
Congress and the people erected that Territory into a soverign State, and 
the organic law was passed creating the Territory of Wisconsin, which also* 
included Iowa, and in October of that year, (1836,) the first Terri-^ 
torial Legislature convened at Belmont, Iowa county, which with three 
others, (Brown, Milwaukee, and Crawford,) had been organized under 
the former territorial Government, and comprised what is now the whole 
State of Wisconsin. The latter (Crawford) included about one-half 
the Territory, (Wisconsin), and of course this valley, and was entitled 
to two Representatives, but no member of Council. At the first session^ 
James H. Lockwood and James B. Dallam, were chosen to represent this 
(Crawford) county, and the next year, 1837, to the Legislature convened 
at Burlington, Iowa, Jean Brunett and Ira B. Brunson, were elected. 
There was a special session of this Legislature called, and Mr. Brunett 
attended both. He was also engaged quite extensively in trading with 
the Indians, and in lumbering. • 

At the treaty spoken of in the preceding chapter, held in Prairie du 
Chien, in 1825, it was stipulated that the Government should maintain 
an agency at La Point for the distribution of annuities, and to establish 
a farm and blacksmith shop with a competent workman therein at some 
point on the Chippewa river not far from the Falls. 

Mr. Lyman Warren, of La Point, formerly of Newburg, New York, 
was appointed to the position of farmer, blacksmith, and sub-agent, and 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTOEY. 17 

subsequently, by Governor Dodge, as justice of the peace, and established 
himself at Chippewa City, five miles above the Falls. 

The Gothy family now located at the Court de Oreilles (Couterey) 
agency, and several other half breeds of note located there, and it soon 
became quite an important place for the sale of goods, and the collection 
of furs, the whole being under the direction and control of the American 
Fur Company and its agents. But in 1837, immediately after the treaty 
at Fort Snelling and the cession of these lands by the Indians, a number 
of those agents, including H. L. Dousman, Gen. Sibley, Col. Aiken and 
Lyman Warren, fitted out an expedition under the supervision of Mr. 
Brunett to erect a saw-mill at the Falls of the Chippewa. Why this 
point should have been chosen in preference to the Dells, either upper or 
lower, seems unaccountable ; it is probable, however, that the difficulty 
of booming the river and securing the logs was never taken into account. 
Had men of larger experience in lumbering on large rivers, in damming, 
booming, and storing large quantities of logs been employed by this com- 
pany, the probability is that the mill would have been located at some 
point where, by setting the water back over some lagoon or marsh flat, a 
safe reservoir for logs could be formed entirely outside of the rapid cur- 
rent. There were such points on the river, above and below, but no more 
expensive and difficult place could have been found on the whole river 
than the one selected, in which to stop and retain a season's supply of 
logs, as the result has shown by repeated disasters. Experience has also 
proved that it is far less difficult to obtain a head of water to drive a saw 
mill than to secure a stock of logs, on a rapid river like the Chippewa, 
hemmed in as it is between steep banks, and if there should ever come 
such a freshet as occured in 1838, and again in 1847, I am afraid there 
would be few logs left in any boom on the river. 

It was necessary to engage all operatives, boatmen, axemen, mechanics, 
loggers, etc., and to bring all neccessary supplies from Prairie du Chien, 
or points below, and those employed by Mr. Brunett in the construction 
and management of the mill at the Falls, were mostly the old voyagers, 
and Canadian French and half breeds, previously employed in the fuv 
trade, and amongst the first who came to settle permanently, was Louis 
Demarie, notably conspicious as the father of five blooming daughters : 
he was of pure Canadian French blood, from Montreal, and his wife . 
French and Chippewa half-breed, born in Detroit. She was a woman ct 
uncommon natural abilities, and with education and culture would have 
graced a high social position in any community. She was a born physi- 
cian, and for many years the only one in the valley ; and in making a 



18 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

diagnosis of disease, and her knowledge of the healing properties and 
proper application of many of the remedies used in the Materia Medica, 
exhibited extraordinary insight and skill in her practice. She was fre- 
quently called to attend upon myself and family, and her prescriptions 
were simple, natural, and always efficacious. Several of her daughters 
had attained the age of maidenhood before leaving Prairie du Chien, and 
were much admired belles in that old pioneer town, whose young swains 
sang their praises on many a night's camp ground. 

The work of building the mill progressed slowly the first year ; a 
great many unexpected obstacles impeded the undertaking ; the rock 
encountered in excavating the race was of such intense hardness that the 
contractors threw up the job, and in re-letting the work a price almost 
fabulous had to be paid, running into many thousands. During the 
ensuing winter the supply of provisions failing, recourse was had to the 
stores of H. S. Allen, at Menomonie. On such occasions every one 
looked out for himself, and amongst those who sufi'ered was Mr. Demarie, 
whose family being large, soon found it necessary to obtain a supply from 
that quarter. As spring advanced and the ground became bare, so that 
trains, (a short one-horse vehicle on runners much used in Canada) 
could not run, it was sometimes necessary to pack provisions over on their 
backs, and on one occasion, the two older girls, Mary and Rosalie were 
• dispatched thither for flour, and other necessaries which led the way to 
more intimate relation. At this time, the Green Mountain adventurer 
and successful lumberman on the Red Cedar, had rebuilt the oldest of 
the Street & Lockwood mills, and looked forward to a prosperous career 
in the the business he had chosen. One thing he yet lacked, God's last, 
best gift to man, a wife, in the multiplicity of business cares he had 
neglected to take " unto himself" ; perhaps too, away down amongst his 
native hills some school-girl's face still haunted his dreams, and he might 
have longed for the time to come, when he could get away from these 
wild scenes, and claim it as his own ; but then, woidd she be willing to 
share with him the hardships and social privation to which she must be 
subjected in his exile home? Such reflections had made him hesitate, and 
when the fair but bashful Mary Demarie presented herself at his counter, 
it is not to be wondered at that she made an impression Upon him that 
set at defiance all those preconceived notions of propriety, family pride 
and youthful fancy, and to ally himself with this unsophisticated girl of 
the pine woods. After several months wooing, they were married by 
Esq. Warren, and she being a devoted Catholic, their union was subse- 
quently solemnized at Prairie du Chien, according to the rites of that 



CUIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 19 

Hhurcli. In the spring and summer of this year, 1838, there came the 
most terrible flood ever known on this river, in the month of June ; from 
Eau Claire to the Mississippi, the bottom-lands, from bluff" to bluff", were 
covered with water from ten to fifteen feet deep. Mr. Brunett's keel 
boats were at Menomonie for lumber, when the water was highest, and 
entered through the woods and over the prairie bottoms, keeping close to 
the bluff's in order to enable them to reach bottom with their poles. 



CHAPTER IV 



We left Captain George Wales in 1838-9, building a mill on the Eau 
Galle ; he was in partnership in the undertaking with Thomas Savage, 
and a mill-wright called Captain Dis, most likely the same that had been 
employed in the erection of the two mills before named, on the Monom- 
onie (Red Cedar,) by Street & Lockwood. Soon after this mill com- 
menced operations in 1839, there came on to that stream two young men, 
named William Carson, and Henry Eaton, the former from Canada, the 
latter a Yankee, and as the mill company had no prescriptive or exclusive 
right to the pine, commenced getting out square timber and shingles, a 
business which their enterprise and economy made quite lucrative, but 
was very annoying to the company, not only because it took away the 
most convenient and valuable timber, but obstructed the navigation of 
the little river for their cribs of lumber. These operations continued for 
several years, and in the mean time, several others found their way on to 
that stream and the Red Cedar ; amongst them a man named Lamb, who 
stuck his stakes and built the first bouse^in Dunnville, which very soon be- 
came a noted " stopping place " for all the lumbermen and hunters that 
came to the country. It was then considered one of the best locations 
of the kind in the valley, and its owner soon found it necessary to pro- 
cure "an help mate," which he found in the person of Margaret 
Demarie, adopted daughter of Louis Demarie, at the Falls, (French- 
town). Lamb was an old soldier, very dissipated, with no business habits 
or industry, and being unable to keep up the place to the wants of the 
public, in 1841 sold out to his more energetic brother-in-law, Arthur Mc- 
Cann, who had just married Rosalie Demarie, sister of Mrs. Allen. 

Three of these brothers, Stephen, Arthur, and Dan McCann, had come 
on to the river a year previous ; they were originally from Marietta.. 



20 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Ohio, had followed the river round, and like many other river men of 
that day, belonged to the more reckless strata of society. 

The Eau Galle Company finding all eflForts to induce the energetic 
young operators, Carson and Eaton, to leave the stream, unavailable, con- 
cluded to sell them an interest in the mill, which soon after resulted in the 
withdrawal of Savage & Dix from the concern, leaving Carson, Eaton & 
Wales as the firm, the latter being considered the financial partner, who 
necessarily spent much of his time at St. Louis, and other points on the 
Mississippi, selling lumber, leaving his family at the mill. 

When young Tom Sheridan was requested by his father to take a wife, 
he replied, "that he had no objections if he only knew whose wife to 
take." There is wit and humor in such a remark, where plenty of other 
material to make wives of are at hand, ready and waiting for a fellow to 
propose. But it becomes a serious matter, and "no joke into it," when 
on looking " the landscape o'er," a young man in want finds that if he 
takes a wife at all it must be somebody else's wife. A bashful young 
man, whose heart comes right up into his throat the moment he finds 
himself in the presence of, and attempts to speak to a young lady who 
has taken his fancy, is frequently astonished at the case and fluency with 
which he can address himself to a married one, and encouraged by the 
freedom and familiarity experienced in revealing his inmost thoughts to, 
and eliciting the sympathy of a married female acquaintance, many a 
virtuous young man has found himself contravening the tenth command- 
ment in coveting his neighbor's wife. Which of these causes influenced 
or took possession of one of these junior partners, (Eaton) there is no 
jecord extant by which to determine, but one thing is certain : during 
the long protracted absence of the senior down the river, the junior's 
visits to the residence of his partner's mistress became alarmingly frequent. 
Free love as taught and exemplified by Mrs. Woodhull, of our time, may 
or may not have been a favorite theory with this exemplary lady at this 
time, but that she encouraged these visits, and did her best to render 
them agreeable is freely admitted. Perhaps she derived some secret sat- 
isfaction from so doing, in the fact that her lord, like John Quin, 
"carried his wife in his pocket," and when absent from her, squandered 
]arge sums for his gratification, but expected his wife to bo a paragon of 
virtue. Such was the course of events until the fall of 1844, when 
matters culminated in open rupture between this historic couple, and 
finally separation; and as his extravagance had involved the firm in 
financial embarrassment, the other members compelled him to abdicate, 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 21 

when he left the valley forever, the oldest settler, and, as some say, the 
most wronged of any that ever came into it. 

Some two miles below Gilbert's Creek on the West side of the Red 
Cedar, a small spring creek makes into the river, on which in 1839 H. S- 
Allen built a saw mill, making three mills owned and run by him at the 
same time, which gave to the one on Gilbert's Creek, the name of the 
" middle mill," by which it was known for many years. It was re-built 
in 1841. The same year Allen sold the lower or Spring Creek mill to 
Stephen S. McCann ; it was to this mUl that Simon and George Randall 
first came and took employment with MeCann. It was burned in 1843, 
the loss falling on the orignal owner, Allen. In the fall of the year 
1841, the mill on Wilson's creek was sold to one Green, and by him soon 
transferred to a Mr. Pearson, by whom the first dam across the Menora- 
onee was erected, with a view to the establishment of a big mill, but for 
want of means was unable to go on, and finally sold out to an old 
gentleman by the name of Black, who in 1844 transferred a half interest 
to Knapp & Wilson, two of the present wealthy owners, and in the fall 
of the same year went down on a raft to Keokuk, Iowa, sickened and 
died, leaving the property to the other members of the firm, who, the 
following year, associated themselves with Mr Stout, under the firm name 
of Knapp, Stout & Co. While Mr. Black was in possession at this point 
in 1844, a most unprovoked murder was committed by a man whose name 
my informant eannot recall, the victim had retired for the night to the 
garret of an old log house, where he was stealthily shot. A warrant was 
issued by Esq. Branham, the ofi"ender arrested, taken to Prairie du Chien 
tried before Judge Dunn and acquitted. This is supposed to be the first 
murder of any white man in the valley, but was very soon followed by 
another, under the following circumstances : Arthur McCann and J. C. 
Thomas, in partnership had in 1843 commenced and nearly completed the 
Blue Mills, now so called, the former still residing at DunvUle ; they had 
employed on the work for some time, a man by the name of Sawyer, who 
when his time was up, went down to McCann's for a settlement, after 
which McCann proposed cards, at the same time treating freely. 

The game went on untU evening, when some dispute arose the latter 
threw a scale-weight at the former, whereupon he repaired to the cabin 
of Philo Stone, near by, carefuUy loaded his rifle, went back to the door 
of McCann's house and called him ; on his appearance at the door Saw- 
yer took deliberate aim, and McCann fell dead on his own door-step, 
the victim of a drunken brawl. Sawyer made his way up the river to 
Eau Claire, and thence to the Falls of Chippewa, where his pursuers lost 



22 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTOEY. 

track of him, since when he has never been heard of, although a large 
reward was offered for his apprehension by McCann's friends. His 
wife returned to her parents, and Philo Stone took possession of the 
tavern. 

This man and his brother Rosewell Stone, came on to the river in 1838, 
from Vermont, and engaged in hunting on the neutral territory between 
he Sioux and Chippewas, which being seldom visited by either party of 
Indians, was most excellent hunting grounds for the whites who came early. 
Philo was a turbulent fellow, never avoided a quarrel, was brave, wiry, 
small in stature but quick as lightning, never was whipped, was fre- 
quently arrested and placed under bonds to keep the peace, and like many 
others had taken a full-blooded squaw, whom he trained to be a good 
housekeeper ; the fact is, this class of women are all tractable, and easy 
to acquire all the arts and many of the graces of civilized life, and if the 
males were as readily molded into the ways of industry and progress as 
the females, they would be easily civilized. 



CHAPTER V. 



The settlement at the Falls will now claim our attention, and as indi- 
cating the social condition, and the difficulties under which the early set- 
tlers labored, I will quote from a letter just received from Rev. Dr. 
Alfred Brunson, of Prairie du Chien, he says: "In 1842, I was ap- 
pointed Indian agent at La Point, Lake Superior, and in going there 
went up the Chippewa river in a keel boat to the mouth of the Red 
Cedar, It was in the month of November, and so cold that the floating 
ice cut a hole in the bow of our boat, and we were compelled to land. 
The next morning the river was closed with ice, and the snow was a foot 
deep. Mr. Jean Brunett was in charge of the boat, which was laden 
with provisions, clothing, etc., for the company's mill at the Falls, to 
which place Mr. Brunett sent messengers for teams to draw up the freight. 
But the cattle being out on the Rush bottoms, (Lowe's creek bottoms,) 
a week passed before the team arrived, and we were two days reaching 
the Falls. My position as Indian agent made Mr. Warren, (the sub- 
agent and blacksmith before named) one of my employees, and I went 
to his house and stayed several weeks waiting for the ice to bridge the 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 23 

rivers, lakes and swamps so that we could make a winter's passage through 
to La Point, which detained me until nearly Christmas. 

Finding an excellent library at Mr. Warren's, I imj)roved my time in 
reading ; and Mrs. Warren, though seven-eights Indian and spoke only 
the Chippewa language, was an excellent cook and neat house-keeper. 
Their house was of hewn logs, two stories high, furnished with good 
heds, and I fared like a prince. The Indians for 40 or 50 miles around 
hearing that their "Father," the agent, was there came in to see me, 
and both they and the lumbermen who had troublesome teeth came in to 
have them extracted, the tools for which I carried with me, as every 
traveler among them should. In the meantime Mr. Warren fitted out 
the trains, one for dogs the other a one horse rig. These vehicles are 
very peculiar, being a thin rock-elm board 10 feet long, and from 12 to 
15 inches wide, bent up at the forward end like a runner, and strips of 
coder fastened to the edge having holes through them to facilitate binding 
on their loads. We reached La point in ton days, five men going ahead 
on snow-shoes, but I rode on the train." 

The following summer Mr. Brunson made another trip, and writes as 
follows : "On the 24th day of May, 1842, 1 left Prairie du Chien with 
a company of miners, bound for the newly purchased copper mines of 
Lake Superior. We had three wagons, nine yoke of oxen, three horses 
and fourteen men. After the first ten miles we had to look out our own 
road, bridge some of the deep narrow streams and ford others. I had 
learned from Cadot, brother of Mrs. Warren, the previous winter, what 
the face of the country was between Black river and Chippewa Falls. At 
the former place we found the Mormons in possession getting out timber 
for their Nauvoo Temple ; to them,fand our company, I preached the first 
Gospel sermon ever delivered in that valley. We ferried over Black 
river on their keel boats, except the cattle who swam. The Trempeleau 
was crossed high up the valley, and thence over the ridge into the valley 
of the Eau Claire which we crossed on a raft, the water being too deep to 
ford, as we judged ten miles from its mouth. 

We sighted an elk while ascending the ridge between the Eau Claire 
and Chippewa, from whence we descried Mr. Warren's barn, for which 
we steered our course, and struck the Chippewa within twenty rods of 
the Falls, and ferried over on the company's keel boats fastened together 
and covered with plank." 

"Obtaining a guide from Mr. Warren, and an addition of three or 
four men to our force, we took the divide between the Chip- 
pewa and Bed Cedar, crossed the outlet of a lake we called Cedar 



24: CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Lake, fifty yards wide and throe feet deep, with a fleet of canoes sailing 
around us, wondering at our wagons and hungering for provisions." , 
" The fourth of July found us at Lake Che-tack, with a dozen Indians 
in our camp, and feeling a glow of patriotism, the men with me must 
have an oration, and I being the only talker by trade, was selected as the 
orator of the day, and delivered, I suppose, the first speech of the kind 
ever pronounced in that valley. William Warren, my interpreter, ex- 
plained my discourse to the Indians present, who said they under- 
stood the history of our revolution. Very little game was seen along the 
route, and that little between Black and Chippewa rivers, that being a 
kind of neutrally forbidden ground, between the hostile bands." 

Messrs. Brunett & Warren were undoubtedly competent men to 
manage the business of an Indian trading post, but the projectors and 
capitalists who furnished the means to build the new mill, and construct 
booming works at the Falls, very soon discovered that in order to a suc- 
cessful prosecution of the business, some person more experienced, and 
possessing greater executive ability, must be placed at the helm. Five 
years had now passed, and no return for the capital invested had been 
realized, or seemed likely to accrue, and the company were anxious to 
find some responsible party to take the property oif their hands. The 
death of Mr. Warren during the winter following the visit of Mr. Brun- 
son, hastened the necessity for prompt action, and accordingly, early in 
the summer of 1844, the mill, with all their teams, tools, boats and fix- 
tures, was sold to Jacob W. Bass and Benjamin W. Brunson, son and 
son-in-law of the Rev. Dr. aforesaid. The consideration was §20,000, 
payable in annual installments, with interest. The principal factor in 
this young firm, was Mr. Bass, who had been a peddler, kept a hotel, 
run the ferry at North McGregor, a siiccessful merchant, was just mar- 
ried, and the young couple were as ambitious and determined to hew them- 
.selves out a fortune, as any couple with whom I ever became acr^uainted. 
Mrs. Bass came directly to the Falls with him — the only white woman 
tliere — and though a mere girl in age and appearance, possessed unlimited 
confidence in herself, and a great deal of family pride, that sustained her 
under privations and exile. 

The new firm came into possession of a property, run down by luis- 
managemoiit and constant disaster, without piers or booms, or any ar- 
rangement to secure a stock of logs, the mills and race out of repair, it 
required greater experience and more capital than they could command, 
although a year and six months of untiring eseition had overcome some 
of tlie obstacles to success, whon in 1846 another oj orator in this losing 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 25 

drama, must be introduced. In order to do so, we must go back to the 
Red Cedar once more. 

In the management of the mills referred to in the previous chapter, H- 
S. Allen had associated with him in the business, in 1842, G-. S. Brau- 
ham, and the firm had accumulated considerable capital, and during the 
winter of 1845-6, began to look 'about with a view to invest it in some 
larger establishment. "Why they did not retain the property on Wilson's 
Creek, and the site on which the Menomonie mills and village now stand, 
is a mystery — one of the {inaccountable mistakes, which even far seeing 
business men will sometimes make, by which the golden opportunity is 
lost forever, or, as in this instance, surrendered to another. After a 
thorough examination of all the numerous elligible locations in the 
valley, .this company, having associated themselves with my brothers, 
Simon and George Randall, under the firm name of Allen. Branham & 
Randall, fixed upon the Lower Dalles of the Chippewa, as the best, and 
in fact the only place, on the whole river, where logs could be taken out 
of the current and held securely and safely, and cheaply handled during 
iiigh and low water. The works at the Falls were even then the great 
obstacle to the improvement of this grand natural position. But they 
determined to go on, notwithstanding the opposition they expected to en- 
oounter from that source. 

To avoid aU immediate difficulty, their plan of operations was to erect a 
dam at the foot of the dalles half the distance across the river, thence a side 
or wing dam, on the smooth rock bottom, up along, near the raft chan- 
nel, to the head or upper reef of rock on the dalles, and by a low, brush 
and stone (or gravel) dam, across to the east or south bank, which would 
raise a sufficient head of water, but would not interrupt the navigation 
for raft or boats. Booming capacity was to be obtained at first, in the 
eddy, where Ingram & Kennedy's logs are stored for their eddy mill, 
and inside the wing dam, and eventually, as the business became more 
developed, and their means more abundant, a raft and boat channel was 
to be excavated across the point where the mill formerly owned by Nel- 
son, Hunter & Co., now stands — the channel so much talked of since, 
when the entire river for two miles in the bend thus relieved by the cut 
ofi', could be used as a safe reservoir for logs. This plan of improvements 
was fully matured by the aforesaid company, was repeatedly submitted 
to other business men, myself among them, and would be pronounced to- 
day, by a competent engineer, a feasible — perhaps the best method of 
improving those far famed dalles that could be adopted. Every arrange- 
ment was forthwith made to carry this undertaking fcrward. Allen & 



26 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Branham sold their mill on Gilbert Creek to Samuel Gilbert, Sen.,, 
father of Gen. Isham GUbert, and came immediately over and commenc- 
ed operations. A contract was made with the writer, who was then 
operating the Blue Mill, for all the dam* plank and other lumber required, 
and means advanced to enable him to furnish it. Shanties, in which 
to board the men, and warehouses for their goods were immediately 
erected. 

The peninsula formed by Half Moon Lake, being convenient and 
studded with pine timber, of suitable size for tl^e purpose, was taken pos- 
session of, and the timber got out for a large mill. So much had been 
accomplished when spring came on, and the parties comprising the firm, 
having separate interests to attend to, relinquished operations for a brief 
period, as was supposed to be resumed again when those private interests 
were closed up. 

Allen & Branham had a considerable amount of lumber on Gilbert's 
creek, to take down the river and convert into money. During the 
previous summer, (1845), Steven S. McCann and Jeremiah C Thomas 
— the latter since the death of Arthur McCann, having sole possession 
of the Blue mill, had formed a partnership and built a claim shanty near 
the site of the Eau Claire Lumber company's water mill on the Eau 
Claire river, the former, McCann, had also erected a cabin near the con- 
fluence of this stream with the Chippewa, for a warehouse, and another 
on the site of the American House in the Second ward of this city, into 
which he moved his family. These were the first improvements made 
in Eau Claire This firm had no means to build a mill, but succeeded in 
putting a couple of logging camps up the Eau Claire for the winter, but 
running short for supplies had recourse to Simon and George Randall, 
who were prevailed upon to invest a considerable sum to help them 
through the winter, and found it necessary to look after it pretty sharp 
in order to secure it for use in the new firm of Allan, Branham & Ran- 
dall, the principal of whom as before stated was down the Mississippi 
closing up the old business. 

The historian can only speak of results, the causes which produce them 
are frequently beyond his ken. The fate of empires depends as much on 
the success of diplomacy, as on the force of arms, and the benefits of 
many a hard won battle have been lost to the victor by a short sighted 
poliey in arranging the terms of surrender, and private operations are no 
exception to the rule. I suppose it is all right for men to protect their 
own interests against the competitive enterprise of others even if they 
have to make " the worst appear the better side. In the mind of H. L. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 27 

Dousman, there was just this question presented when he heard that H. 
S. Allen had concluded to locate at the Lower Dalles : " Every dollar I 
have put into that property at the Falls is a dead loss or that man must 
he induced to abandon that enterprise ; aye, more ! I must have the 
experience, the energy, and financial ability of that man enlisted for me, 
not against me." What agencies were employed, what arguments used, 
or what inducements oflFered to effect this purpose has not come to light. 
Perhaps Mr. AUen, naturally cautious, came to the conclusion that the 
undertaking was too great for the means at their command. Be that as 
it may, the first news that came up the river was that the whole project 
was abandoned, that Allen & Branham had dissolved, that the former 
had bought in with Mr. Bass at the Falls, and that the strong team of 
Allen & Bass would be able to overcome all the immense natural ob- 
stacles and disadvantages of that situation. 

Dr. Williamson in his treatise on human volition, says there is no such 
thing as there might have been, but it certainly looks to me as though 
the situation and condition of a great many things on this river might 
have been very different had Allen, Branham & Randall gone on with 
their contemplated enterprise. One thing certainly might not have been* 
the ten years struggle to obtain a charter under which those works could 
have been successfully const. ucted, would have been obviated, and in 
all probability most of the lumber manufactured on the river would have 
been made here, where a safe and ample reservoir for logs might long 
since have been perfected, and millions saved to all lumbermen on the 
river that for want of these works have year after year proved a total 
loss, and brought many to the verge of bankruptcy. 



CHAPTER VI 



Satisfactory arrangements having been made between the partners in 
the late firm of AUen, Branham & Randall, for their separation, the two 
juniors', S. and Gr. Randall, took a half interest in the claim of McCann 
& Thomas, at the mouth of the Eau Claire river, and preparations were 
made to erect a dam and mill on the site of the Eau Claire Lumber com- 
pany's water mill, and in October, 1846, the dam was completed, and 
the work progressing finely, under the firm name of McCann, Randall & 



28 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Thomas. Messrs. Allen & Bass, had also commenced expensive improve- 
ments at the Falls. 

During the summer the writer had brought his family, which, until 
now, had remained in Iowa, to the Blue Mill, which he had bought of J. 
<3. Thomas. Mrs. Randall had been reared in the bosom of the Metho- 
dist church, and regarded the loss of its privileges as a very serious draw- 
back to her enjoyment on coming here. Since our marriage, some two 
or three years previous, I, too, had been identified with that church and 
its services. It was now proposed to do what we could for the interests 
of religion in this remote corner. Appointments to hold Divine service 
on alternate Sabbath's at the company's boarding house, in Chippewa 
Falls, and at the house of S. S. McCann, in Eau Claire, were accord- 
ingly made in September, of the year before mentioned, 1846, and con- 
tinued until the setting in of winter, when a severe illness prostrated the 
writer, and the meetings were discontinued — tho first public religious 
services ever held in this valley. Another little event of a social nature 
occurred also about this time which must not be passed over. Geo. W, 
Randall, of the aforesaid firm, having become satisfied that it is " not 
good for a man to dwell alone," concluded to "take unto himself a wife. " 
Miss Mary La Point, formerly of Prairie du Chien, and brought up in 
the family of Mr. Brisbois, came to Eau Claire during the summer and 
made up her mind to relieve him of his disconsolate condition. Mr. and 
Mrs. McCann made a big wedding. Mr. Bass, at the Falls, had received 
a commission as Justice of the Peace, from our Territorial Governor, 
and was invited down to solmenize the nuptials ; the throne of Grace 
was addressed, and the blessings of Heaven invoked on their union 
by the writer, and this was the first wedding that took place in Eau 
Claire. 

Some time in the following winter another event not without interest, 
came to pass, Simon Randall, the other junior partner in the same firm, 
having suffered several years of isolation, had like many other young men 
among the early comers taken one of the maidens of the forest with 
whom he lived quite happily. She was a good cook, and kept his house 
in good order. Simon really seemed attached to her, but though of a 
hardy race she was not exempt from the conditions of her sex, and ero 
she became a mother, the "destroyer had done its work." Funeral 
services were held over her remains, and the bereaved invited to the con- 
solations of the Gospel, by the writer, from 1st cor, xv 21, 22, and this 
was the first funeral service ever performed here. 

The winter of 1846-7, was in some respects very remarkeble; scarcely 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 29 

any snow fell, and so intensely cold was the weather that the water in the 
Chippewa, at the Falls, froze to the bottom, forcing it to overflow, in the 
same manner we frequently see small rivulets rise to the surface and 
cause a fresh layer of ice every night, and this was continued until every 
rock, island and tree on the Falls, were submerged with ice, lying solid 
in many places twenty feet in thickness from the bottom. I have never 
known this to occur since. This scarcity of snow extended the whole 
length of the river to its source, and would have proved ruinous to "long 
hauling" contracts, had there been any at the time, but Messrs. Colton 
& Moses, on YeUow river, for the Falls company, and the Hoosier Log- 
ging company on the Eau Claire, had bank hauling, and managed even 
without snow to get large stocks of logs for their respective companies. 
But if the winter was remarkable for want of snow, the spring was still 
more remarkable for absence of rain, there being scarcely enough to lay 
the dust through the entire months of April and May, and not a log 
floated in either the Yellow or Eau Claire rivers during the whole time. 
But on the evening of the 5th of June, after a foggy morning and a hot 
windy day, rain commenced falling, accompanied with most fearful thun- 
der aud lightning, unlike anything I ever before heard, or witnessed, and 
continued to pour down in torrents until eight o'clock the next morning, 
at which time the Chippewa had risen twelve feet, and was covered with 
logs, drift wood and the debris of piers and booms from the Falls, where 
a total wreck of all the costly structures placed in the river during the 
previous winter, to stop and hold logs, had been made ; nothing was left 
but the mill, and its race and guard locks were completely demolished or 
filled with gravel. 

More than ten thousand logs — the entire stock out of Yellow river was 
carried away, and the total avails of a winter's operations perished in this 
flood. 

The supply of logs for the Blue Mill shared the same fate, and in my 
endeavors to save a part of my boom, I was taken out into the wild and 
surging current, on it as it floated away. I have been on many log drives 
and often placed in positions of extreme peril, but never has death stared 
me more directly in the face than while afloat on that frail boom — bent, 
crushed, and broken, between masses of logs and drift wood. I could do 
nothing with it, and on, aud on, it went with the rapidity of a railway 
train, passing repeatedly under the branches of reclining trees. I lay flat 
on my face and clung to those strained timbers, well knowing that once 
m that boiling flood no skill in the art of swimming could save me from 
a watery grave, but as the fates would have it, my rickety craft shot like 



30 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

an arrow out of the current and went ashore at the eddy where Sher- 
man's mill was since built, so being only a short distance from my 
brother's on the Eau Claire, I walked over and witnessed a more terrible 
devastation still. It was now nearly noon, but every log pier, and boom 
on this stream had, hours before, been swept away by the still fast swell, 
ing flood, and in one hour more the new double saw mill just ready to 
commence operations, was borne almost bodily away by the resistless cur- 
rent. It was a sickening sight and I hurried back to relieve the fears of 
my family for my safety. 

A party of Geologists under the Superintendeenceof Hon.lDavid Dale 
Owen, had just reached my place at the Blue Mill as I returned ; had 
camped just below, the night before and could go no farther until the 
water had subsided. The party had fitted out at Prairie du Chien, under 
the directions of the Secretary of the Interior, by authority of an act of 
Congress providing for a G-eological and Minerological survey of the 
northern part of Wisconsin Territory, and had chosen this route to reach 
Lake Superior, in bark canoes. I regret that I cannot remember the 
names of all the party, but one name, besides Owen's I shall not soon 
forget, Dr. Gwyn, the physician, on account of his kindness to us under 
affliction. Six weeks before a sweet babe had been born to ub, the alarm 
and exposure of its mother on this day together with the drenching rain, 
brought on an attack of croup. On being acquainted with the case the 
Doctor immediately prescribed for it, and was unremiting in his attend- 
ance upon it during his stay, and when he left we supposed the danger 
had passed, but on the evening of the second after, a relapse came on 
and the little sufferer's struggles for breath were soon over and we were a 
second time childless. 

Not often does it fall to the lot of enterprising men to sustain so heavy 
a calamity as fell upon those two, young lumbering establishments at Eau 
Claire and Chippewa Falls. The savings, of years, of toil, aad struggle, 
had been invested in these undertakings and now scarcely a vestige of all 
remained, and worse than all, heavy liabilities had been incurred for 
which there was no possible adequate provision to meet. Misfortunes 
almost always lead to dissolution in partnerships. It was so in this case. 
In fact nothing else could be done, as in the case with the company here 
in Eau Claire, capital to start again, could only be reached by taking in- 
to the concern some one with means, and as the crisis and panic of 1847, 
had made every one wary it was no easy matter to accomplish. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 31 

Mr. Bass withdrew from the firm of Allen & Bass at the Falls leaving 
Mr. Allen alone to bear the brunt. The logs that had been carried away 
were sold to the Hoozier logging company, before named, whojcontracted 
to gather them all up from the sloughs and river bottoms, and there being 
no money in the west at that time, the payments were made due in 
articles of farm produce, and amongst others one hundred barrels of mess 
pork were delivered at Lake Pepin, at seven dollars per barrel, transpor- 
ted too all the way from Rock Island. Flour was another item at $2.75 
per barrel delivered at the same place. 

Farmers of the Chippewa Valley, how would you like to grow wheat 
and pork now at those figures ! 

Mr. and Mrs, Bass removed to St. Paul then just starting into being, 
got hold of some land near the city, speculated in lots, lumber, and other 
property, and he is now one of the solid men of St. Paul. Allen had 
credit and used it to start again. J. C. Thomas came back to the Blue 
Mill, McCann took to farming on Eagle prairie above the Falls. Philo 
Stone and H. Cady took their places with S. & G-. Randall, who rebuilt 
the mill on the Eau Claire the following winter, 1837-8. J. J. Grage, 
James Reed, and Capt. Dix bought the lower mill site, and erected a 
dam and mill on the site of the Eau Claire Lumber Company's flouring 
mill. 



CHAPTER VIL 

Some of my readers in this city having intimated that a more extended 
statement, or description, of the terrible freshet spoken of at the close 
of the preceding letter, (No. 6,) would be desirable, I will endeavor to 
give some idea of it by coiliparison and otherwise. Having carefully 
noted every great rise in the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers, since that 
time, I hesitate not to say that in all places where their waters were con- 
fined between banks, within ordinary limits, they were full six feet high- 
er than the highest freshet that has since occurred. All the way from 
the foot of the dalles down to the present Chippewa bridge, the water 
poured over the west bank of the river into the depression beyond, in 
sufficient depth to float the largest logs ; and from Rev. Mr. Kidder's 
residence down to the present Pioneer block, logs and drift wood lay high 
upon the slope, being checked by the trees, while the entire flat between 
that bank and the river was manv feet under water. The mark on some 



32 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

of those logs which I noticed at one time the ensuing Bummer, indicated 
that they were out of the Eau Claire river. The ground on which Shaw 
& Galloway's foundry and machine shop now stands, was at least ten 
feet under water. The entire farm of Mr. Yates, opposite the Blue Mill, 
was inundated, six to ten feet. 

Some of the heavest timbers, and heavily ironed wheels belonging to 
the mill that was carried away at Eau Claire, floated across the 
bottom and lodged high upon the slope of the hill back of Porterville, 
the whole country from bluff to bluff being under water. 

The Indians will now claim our attention. Many of the collisions be- 
tween the hostile bands of Sioux and Chippewas, during the time 
covered by this history, have created so little interest among the white 
settlers, that it is difficult to obtain definite and positive information in 
regard to them. In most instances, too, these encounters are utterly un- 
worthy the name of fighting. Nothing can be more dastardly, or better 
calculated to induce a mean, cowardly disposition, than their mode of 
conducting war — assassination or murder, better defines their treacher- 
ous, stealthy, fiendish butcheries than any other terms. In 1840, a 
party of Sioux were thus waylaid near the Red Cedar river, and entirely 
cut to pieces ; and in November of the same year, a party of six, be- 
longing to the opposite beligerant, was cut off in the same way. The 
following year, a large party of Sioux came up by invitation of the Chip- 
pewas to Eau Claire, where they held a friendly meeting, and smoked 
the pipe of peace. This was repeated in October, 1846, when 150 
braves, all mounted on ponies, came up to the Falls, and thence to Chip- 
pewa City, and held a treaty of peace with their hereditary foes. Among 
them were the great Chiefs, Wabashaw, Red Wing and Big Thunder. 
Their first meeting took place at the Falls, about sunset, and was rather 
informal, owing to some misunderstanding as to the place of meeting. 
The writer was present and heard part of the Reception Address, and 
.subsequently learned from Ambrose — one of the interpreters — the sub- 
stance of what was said on both sides. The Sioux remained mounted on 
their ponies during the entire interview. The Chippewa Chiefs and 
braves wore painted after their mode indicating peace, and the head Chief 
advanced toward their guests with a large red pipe, made of stone from 
Pipe-stone mountain, in one hand, and in the other a hatchet, which was 
thrown with considerable force so as to partially bury it in the earth ; 
then raising the pipe to his mouth and taking a whiff or two, and turn- 
ing the stem toward the Sioux Chief presented it for his acceptance. All 
this was done in silence ; the Sioux Chief received the emblem of peace 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 33 

also in silence, smoked a few whiff's, bowed respectfully as he handed the 
pipe,^reined his pony one step to the right, and waited the next salutation. 
The substance of which was, "Friends we are glad you have come, we 
are anxious to make peace with the Sioux nation. As you have seen us 
throw down and bury the hatchet, so we hope you are inclined to make 
peace." The Sioux Chiefs then threw down whatever arms they held, 
and declared their purpose to maintain permanent peace. They said 
their great father, the President, with whom they had never been at war, 
had requested them to conclude a lasting peace with the Chippewa nation ; 
and although they had sold their lands on the east side of the Mississippi, 
they still wanted to hunt there, and were glad that in the future they 
could do so without fear. This was all done through interpreters ; 
several of whom were present on each side, and closed every sentence 
they repeated with the expression of, " That's what we say." 

The delegation met a much larger number of Chippewa Chiefs and 
braves the next day at Chippewa City where the ceremonies were still 
more imposing, and a dinner was served of which both parties partook. 
These demonstrations were so earnest, and seemed so sincere, that out- 
siders really supposed these hitherto mortal enemies had become fasfc 
friends. But in the summer of 1849, an event occurred that showed 
that one party to this treaty reposed very little confidence in the faith of 
the other. It will, however, be necessary to relate some intervening cir- 
cumstances, before we reach this. 

During the summer of 1848, a wealthy merchant of Galena, by the 
name of Bloomer,'sent some agents up the Chippewa to select a site for a 
saw mill, and immediately came on with a large force and commenced 
operations The site fixed upon was the lower chain of Eagle Kapids, 
on the site of the present dam. The men brought along to execute the 
work, were mostly from the Wisconsin river, and at their head was the 
reckless and notorious Tim. Hurley, and another hard case by the name 
of Tim. Inglar, and several others of like temperament. To secure hay 
for the winter, some of these men were sent up on the meadows in the 
neighborhood of Vanville, and hence the name of Bloomer was given to 
the prairie and town. 

Before winter came on, Mr. Bloomer got discouraged and sold the 
whole thing out to H. S. Allen at the Falls, and the project of building 
a mill on Eagle Rapids was thenceforth abandoned. 

Bloomer himself returned to Galena, but his men were all turned over, 
with the teams and supplies to Allen, that is if they chose to stay, which 
most of them did. Hurley was married and built a house and saloon at 



34 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTOBT. 

the Falls, the first ever started in this valley, which soon became the 
headquarters of every gambler and hard case, in the upper valley, 
amongst others, a Frenchmen, named Martial Caznobia, who on the 
fourth day of July, of this year 1849 with a crowd of these 
fellows having imbibed pretty freely of "benzine," repaired to the wig- 
wam of an Indian then camping near the Falls, wherein the Frenchman 
attempted some liberties with the Indian's squaw which was promptly 
resented, and drawing a dirk-knife, he instantly drove it to the handle in 
the body of the would be violator of his home. 

The wound was a very dangerous one, bled profusely, and was thought 
the next morning to be positively fatal. It was Sunday morning, a great 
crowd assembled around, and at the Hurley House where Caznobia was 
supposed to be dying, when some one raised the cry, "let's hang the 

d d Indian," and no quicker said than done. A rope was procured, 

and headed by Tim Inglar a rush was made for the Indian's residence, a 
noose was formed around his neck, the rope thrown over the limb of a 
pine tree, standing near the present site|of the Union Lumber Company's 
Store, the weight of several of these desperate men was thrown upon the 
Other end of the rope, and the body of the Indian soon dangled between 
heaven and earth, a lifeless corpse. 

Mr. Allen remonstrated in vain against these outrages, well knowing 
it would involve the whole settlement in danger ; and threatening demon- 
strations were very soon made by the Indians who assembled to the num- 
ber of 1,500, determined to burn the place unless the murderers of their 
brother were surrendered to them. And only the commanding influence 
over, and great esteem in which Mr. and Mrs. Allen were held by their 
Chiefs restrained them. After much delay and full explanations had 
been made in which the offenders disclaimed any intentional wrong 
against the Chippewa nation, that it was caused by whisky, and they 
were sorry, now, the Chiefs and braves became somewhat molified, and 
ai^reed that the ring leaders only should be molested, and that they might 
be tried and punished according to our laws ; upon which Tim Inglar, 
and three others surrendered themselves prisoners, and were placed on 
board of a boat to be taken to Prairie du Chien for trial. Eight Chip- 
pewa braves volunteered to escort tbem down the river. 

But as the party approached that point on the Chippewa, " half a days 
march from the Falls," alarm and terror siezed the brave escorts, and 
nothing could induce them to go another rod, in such constant dread were 
they of the Sioux, who twenty months before had promised eternal friend- 
ship. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTOET. 35 

The prisoners however continued their journey to Prairie du Chien, 
and surrendered themselves to the Sheriff of Crawford county, to await 
an examination, but as there was no one to appear against them, they 
were discharged. They took good care, however, not to be seen on the 
\ Chippewa river again. 

To the credit of " Hole-in-the-Day" and all the Chiefs and* braves 
.assembled at the Falls on this occasion to obtain redress for a flagrant 
wrong done to one of their people, it must be said they behaved with 
great moderation. All the young braves were forbidden under severe 
penalties to taste a drop of whiskyduring their entire stay in the Falls, 
more than a week, and no depredations upon any of the whites were per- 
mitted, the only levy made, being for sufficient food to subsist them until 
the difficulty was amicably settled, when they retired peaceably to their 
several abodes up the river, dinner having been served, and a few cheap 
presents distributed amongst them, by Mr. and Mrs. Allen. 

Caznobia recovered and also left the country for the country's good. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Previous to the year 1847, no person had located in this Valley with 
a view to farming. Each mill, and most of the families, had their 
potato patch and garden, while the business and principal dependance of 
every one was directly connected with lumbering, or hunting. But in 
the spring of that year, George Meyers from "Father Land," in view 
of the great cost of boating up flour, feed, and other heavy articles of 
farm produce, and the high price occasioned by transportation determined 
to avail himself of these advantages, and grow those articles up here. 
Messers. Allen & Bass, at the Falls, seconded his undertjking, boated 
up his farming implements, and otherwise assisted hi*^ 'o open the first 
farm in this Valley. With the whole country to choose from, he selected 
a most beautiful and fertile spot, about six miles northwest from the Falls, 
with both prairie and timber, watered by a lovely spring creek, and 
evincing both taste and judgment in his selection. George was a 
bachelor, but soon found himself able to marry, and finally sold his farm 
to William Henneman, who still resides on it, and who informed me this 
winter when marketing his wheat at this depot, that, although twenty- 
seven consecutive crops have been taken from it, a good yield is still ob- 



36 CHIPPEWA TALLEY HISTOBT. 

tained, even where no manure has been applied. German immigrants 
seem to know instinctively where good locations and rich soils are, and 
Heaneman was soon followed by a large number of these frugal, industri- 
ous agriculturists, who settled in what is now the town of Eagle Point, 
and are among the wealthiest and best citizens of Chippewa county. 

One of the difficulties experienced at this early day in selecting loca- 
tions, was the absence of surveyors or government lines, not even town- 
ship lines having been run in any part of the valley, and excepting the 
correction line between towns 30 and 31 north, nothing had been done 
towards surveying the land in this part of the State. This line com- 
mences on the shore of Green Bay, in lat. 45S 20, and strikes the St. 
Croix Lake a little north of the village of Harriman. It was probably 
run the same year that the line of the fourth principle meridian was com- 
pleted. 

This last lino begins at the south line of the State, on the meridian of 
90° 26, 42, and is supposed to run due north ; was surveyed in 1847 by 
Mr. Henry A. Wiltse, who was considered a very competent officer, using 
Burts Solar Compass, and who made the survey with unusual care, for a 
standard meridian, from which the ranges of townships both east and 
west across the whole State are numbered. It strikes the shore of Lake 
Superior, fifteen chains west of the mouth of Montreal river ; was double 
chained and very distinctly marked, but notwithstanding all this care, 
the northern terminus of this line is actually seven miles west of the 
starting point, as laid down in the best charts of Lake Superior, by 
Henry W. Bayfield, R. N. and I. N. Nicollet, of U. S. Topographical 
Engineers. Which position is correct is hard to determine, as all the 
astronomical calculations disagree, varying from fourteen seconds, to 14 
1-3 miles. (Wis. his. col. vol. 4, page 361.) 

The United States Government adopted the best method of surveying 
its lands, ever pursued by any government, perhaps ; the " section," or 
mile square, with all its subdivisions, being undoubtedly the most con- 
venient form in which public domain could bo divided, and had the system 
first inaugurated for its sale and settlement, been equally wise and bene- 
ficent, the hardships experienced by pioneer settlers would have been 
greatly mitigated. But, on the contrary, the policy adhered to until 
within the past fifteen years, was fraught with the grossest injustice and 
oppression. In nearly all its provisions, most iniquitious discriminations 
were made in favor of the wealthy speculator, and against the poor, hard- 
working settler. Let me point out a few of its unjust provisions, which 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. S7 . 

for more than fifty years were on the statute books of this free and en- 
lightened government. 

Only once in a lifetime could a man enter a single forty, and then he 
must make an affidavit that he had never before availed himself of that 
privilege ! Gracious boon ! If he only had the money and wished to 
buy up whole counties, or a whole State, there were no restrictions, oh 
no ! No limits or restrictions could be imposed upon the greed of Land 
Sharks and speculators, but the toiling plebian who could raise but fifty 
dollars to secure an adjoining forty must look on and see it — with all the 
improvements he had put on it — ^gobbled up by some grasping shylock, be- 
cause the law said that |no poor man could twice be the recipient of such 
supreme condescension. 

Then, too, the preemption law was utterly void of any benefit to the 
poor settler ; no income could be derived from his labor on the land, the 
first year, and many a hard-working pre-empter having money due him, 
that he thought he could command when it should be required to save his 
home, has been frustrated by some sudden revulsion in the financial world 
that locked up all the money, and saw all his hopes and toil disappear 
under the relentless grasp of some land shark. And only once in a life- 
time could a man claim the benefit of this franchise. Su«h, and many 
other equally unjust provisions remained on our statutes for half a centu- 
ry, the out 'growth of a system of oppression more terrible than any ever 
before existing among men. 

For more than twenty years the people of the Free States battled 
against these wicked enactments without avail. Twice was a bill got 
through Congress, extending the right of pre-emption from one to five 
years, and as often vetoed, and even the right to enter more than one 
forty was contested for years, and the restriction blackened the statute 
until 1842. And twice was the present beneficent Homestead Law. 
passed only to be vetoed by a pro-slavery President. The history of these 
things belongs to the history of this valley as a part of the great North- 
west, whose interests and progress were continually warred upon, and its 
settlement retardedjby laws which should have been so formed, as to afford 
every possible encouragement to the honest toiler, seeking a home in these 
outskirts of civilization. 

From the time these lands were ceded to the government, as related in 
chapter two the Surveyor General for this District, composed 
of the States of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, had been letting 
contracts, and advancing surveying parties in the direction of this valley 
and in August 1851, Congress having created a new land district with 



38 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTOBT. 

headquarters at Hudson, and the President having appointed John 0. 
Henning register, and Dr. Hoyt receiver, some twenty townships lying 
along the river and extending up into the most exposed of the pine 
region, were brought into market. In the outside world this sale created 
but little interest, and very little land was sold, except that on which im- 
provements had been made. The truth is that throughout the entire 
Northwest, the prices of all farm produce had been so low ever since the 
panic and crash of 1837, that there was really no money to pay for lum- 
ber, land or anything else. Until this year, 1850, this whole valley was 
without roads, mails or any regular communication with the rest of man- 
kind. But the Territory of Wisconsin having became a State in 1848, 
the Legislature had authorized, and made an appropriation to lay out 
and open a road from Prairie du Chicn, via Viroqua, Black River Falls 
and Eau Claire to Hudson, and during the fall of 1849, and winter of 
1849--50, Judge Knowlton, who had the contract for performing the 
work, had so far succeeded in making the road passable, that Congress 
had established a mail route over it with post offices at Eau Claire, and 
Gilberts mill on the Red Cedar. 

Geo. W. Randall was appointed Postmaster at tha former, and Samuel 
Gilbert, for the latter place. The road aforesaid soon became quite a 
thoroughfare for emigrants going west to the more inviting and fertile 
prairies of St. Croix and Minnesota, hundreds of whom passed over this 
intricate and forbidding route, never dreaming of the splendid fortunes 
soon to be realized in such sterile regions as these sandy plains seem to be. 
The mills throughout the valley had now several years, immunity from 
destructive floods, and were slowly recovering from previous misfortunes, 
every year strengthening their piers, booms and introducing new machin- 
ery and other improvements into their works, but the country still con- 
tinued without any administration of law except when very grave ques- 
tions arose, when the parties went to Prairie du Chien for justice, the 
whole intervening country still comprising a part of Crawford county. 
Disputes and personal assaults were however speedily settled by reference 
to mutual friends and the social condition of the settlements, notwith- 
etanding the heterogenous complexion of the people, was daily improving; 
and many began to think that law was an unnecessary evil. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 39 

CHAPTER IX. 

EARTH WORKS. 

Near my former residence, in what is now the town of Lafayette, Chip- 
pewa county, on section eighteen, town twenty-eight nciuh, range eight 
west, was situated the largest, and only considerable ancient and artificial 
mound, or earth-work, that I have discoverei in this valley. The land 
was claimed by George Mishler in 1850, and was included in his farm, 
being one of the first improvements on Wolf Prairie, and one-and-a-half 
miles south of Chippewa Falls. It was in plain sight of my first resi- 
dence on that prairie, subsequently known as the Bolles farm, and I was 
curious to know more about it. It was about twelve yards in length, by 
five in width, and five or six feet high, above the surrounding prairie. 
Near its base was a depression of from one to two feet below the ordinary 
Burfaee, indicating its construction by human agency. 

I fhad seen similar works in Illinois, and in the spring of 1837, 
made one, of a party who volunteered to assist in opening three, 
in the town ot Rockwell, La Salle county. Thera were five of those 
mounds very nearly resembling the one above d ascribed, all within a 
stones throw of each other. The agent of the Rockwell company, Hon. 
Pixwell Lathrop, Walter Tyrell, an engineer engaged in directing the 
construction of the Illinois & Michigan canal, ani several of their assist- 
ants, myself, and a few others, composed the party to open and examine 
those ancient sepulchers of an extinct race. As the ground was frozen, 
considerable labor was required to remove the surface, but we were amply 
remunerated,[and our curiosity gratified by the relics and remains dis- 
interred from these tumuli. In all, human remains were found some of 
gigantic stature, and every bone perfect, while others were very much 
decayed, and well formed pottery vases containing beautiful shells, stone 
or flint arrow heads, chisels, curiously wrought stone images, ect. Sur- 
rounding these relics were evidences in many places of decayed textile 
fabrics, evidently of course material, also the skins of animals, decom- 
posed and mixed with clay soil that for unknown centuries had covered 
and pressed upon them. As no iron, copper, or lead was discovered, these 
works must have belonged entirely to the "stone age," and correspond- 
ed with the tumuli, found on Rock river, Circleville, in Ohio, and many 
other localities in the west being undoubtedly depositories of the dead. 
But I was somewhat disappointed upon opening the first named mound, 
which was done in the spring of 1852, as no human remains were eon- 



40 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

tained in it, only flint cliisels or axes, arrow heads of the same material, 
and very small shells, such as had in all probability once decorated the 
warriors, whose prowess was exhibited in drawing the bow, and directing 
these missiles of death. These were found in considerable quantities, 
buried more than three feet below the surface of the mound, and some of 
them were preserved for a long time with a view to their transmission to 
the State Historical Society, when there should be suitable facilities for 
communication. Some mineral specimens found near by, were also added 
but in moving to the pinery and back during the winter, the collections 
were somehow scattered and lost. 

Why, or for what purpose these impliments and trinkets were secreted 
here, deep buried in the earth, will forever remain a mystery. The 
presence of human remains would readily account for it as people in all 
ages, even civilized people have buried treasures and valuables in the 
tombs of their former possessors, but without these, it is not easy to con- 
jecture the object of their accumulation and concealment. 

I have frequently passed over, and examined the " earth works," 
spoken of by Carver and Featherstonhaugh as vast, ancient fortifications, 
situated on the west bank of the Mississippi, between the village of 
Wabasha, and what used to be known as the grand Encampment, and 
must say that a great stretch of the imagination is required to make 
anything more of them, than the formations of natures own handy 
work. 

And until further excavations shall disclose more convincing evidence 
of human agency in their construction, I shall be slow to accept their 
conclusions. 

INDIAN CUSTOMS. 

During the winters of 1848 '9 and '50, my residance was in the pine 
woods near the mouth of "Bobs Creek" at that time a locality much 
visited by the Chippewa Indians, several families with whom we 
established something like social intercourse, and learned some things of 
their domestic and social usages that may be new and interesting to my 
readers. 

In February of our first winter's stay there, a young couple with their 
infant child, encamped just across the river. The child was sick, and 
the mother frequently came to get medicine for it, of Mrs. Randall, who 
soon took quite an interest in the young mothers anxiety for her offspring, 
but soon discovered that no skill could save it, and after lingering a few 
weeks it died. The young parents seemed almost inconsolable, but after 
a few days, came and bid us good bye, and went on with others of their 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 41 

band up to the head waters of the Chippewa, and we saw no more of 
them until summer, when they came down the river, landed their canoe 
and hastened to our domicil. Mrs. Randall's interest was very soon fixed 
on the bereaved mother, who to her surprise, carried what she supposed 
to be an infant child, and with feminine and maternal curiosity removed 
its coverings to get a peep at it, when not a new and living baby present- 
ed itself, but an image of the dead one lost in the winter. 

How strong is a mother's love ! what undying affection was exhibited 
by this untutored young mother ! During all those weeks of toilsome 
march, and ever moving weariness she had carried the image of her lost 
darling. It seemed to be her only consolation under bereavement to 
carry near her heart the likeness of her lost loved one. How we wished 
to tell her that her babe still lived, and that she should one day meet it 
in immortal embrace fast by the throne of Grod. 

This young mother said all good parents who lost children, carried 
with them similar memorials of their departed little ones. This image 
was carved in wood, and though very imperfect was still a tolerable rep- 
resentation of the infant we first saw with her. The woman and her 
husband were at our place when the Indian was hung at the Falls as here-, 
tofore related, and assured us we need not be alarmed, for no harm should 
befal us. 



CHAPTER X 

From 1850 to 1854, few events of general public interest occurred in 
this valley. Emigration was directed mostly towards the young giant 
just growing up to the west of us, and California still claimed the atten- 
tion of the adventurous. 

Some changes took place in the proprietorship of some of the mills. 

Perhaps some of my readers who have come here from the " Old Pine 
State," will remember the name of Captain Stover Rines, who figured 
ao prominently in the northeastern boundary of the State of Maine war, 
as a tall and resolute captain in the army of defense in the winter o 
183^7. 

Having removed to Janesville, in this State, some years previous, the 
captain made a trip up this river in 1848, and bought an interest with H, 



42 CHIPPEWA VALLEY BISTORT. 

S. Allen, at the FaDs, and removed his family thither the following sum- 
mer. He came, however, like many others, not to stay, but to make a 
"raise," which he did in a couple of years by inducing his partner to 
buy back his interest. Moses Rines, his brother, who had bought in at 
the same time, continued in the firm. Jacob Wills, brother of Sam. 
Wills of this city, who was for some years foreman at the Eau Galle 
mills, soon after became owner in the same property. 

Some such changes also occurred on the Eau Claire. Cady sold his 
interest to a young man by the name of Swim, and Simon Randall sold 
his interest to a Mr. Pope, and bought out Captain Dix in the mill on the 
lower dam. These three firms continued to do business thus organized 
for the whole period named ; the former under the name of H. S. Allen 
& Co., and the two Eau Claire firms with the titles respectively Gage, 
Reed & Randall, and Stone, Swim & Co. 

During one of these years, an incident happened to the last named 
firm, so unusual in modern business afi"air8, that 1 cannot forbear mantion- 
ing it. 

Like all other lumbering firms, these men used their credit to help 
them over the long winter months, when none of the avails of their opera- 
tions could be realized to meet expenses. Among others who trusted 
them with goods, was a Mr. Sincere, of Galena, then in its palmiest days 
as the grand entrepot of lumbermen's supplies. This dealer had exacted 
the promise, that he should be paid out of the first raft that came down 
in the spring ; but, as several others holding similar claims on the float- 
ing chattels must be paid also, Mr. Swim found it necessary to cut this 
creditor short, and ask him to wait until the next raft should come down, 
whereupon the obliging merchant procured a warrant under the laws then 
existing in Illinois, and threw his debtor into prison, and kept him there 
(although no fraud or attempt at fraud was alleged) until some of his 
partners wentMown and procured security. 

The firm of Colton & Moses completed their mill on Yellow river in 
1850, and soon after Alex, and Henry O'Neil with Mr. Lockhart from 
Prairie du Chien, erected the mill on O'Neil's creek, now owned by 
Stanley Brothers. 

This period was marked by determined efi'orts on the part of H. S. 
Allen & Co., to procure cheaper transportation, and to relieve the river- 
men from the terrible hardships of walking up from Lake Pepin after 
taking down rafts, there being only a trail or footpath, along the steep 
side-hills, and over the eandy plains, by which the raftmen in those days 
returned, weary and foot-sore, to the mills. 



CniPPB'WA TALLEY HISTORY. 43^ 

Two projects were started ; the first was to "build a steamboat of suffi- 
ciently light draught to run over the sand bars, or, as the boys termed it, 
'' to run on a heavy dew." 

Captain Matt Harris, of Galena, had been induced to venture up as 
far as the mouth of Red Cedar once, and to Eau Claire once or twice with 
freight and passengers on the steamer Doctor Franklin, when the water 
was high, but all the Mississippi boats were found to draw too much 
water for this river. It was, therefore, resolved to build one for this 
trade. But the science of boat-building, had not then reached the point 
of constructing a boat that would carry an engine of sufficient power to 
propel the craft against the rapid current, and yet float on six or eight 
inches of water ; or, if the feat had been achieved, the builder of this 
first steamboat on our river — a Mr. Harlow, from Pittsburgh had not yet 
acquired the art. The boat, which, by-the-way, was named H. S. Allen, 
was a miserable failure, and could only run on the highest freshet, with 
any safety, and soon transferred to deeper rivers. But the year follow- 
ing another boat was built by the same company, with better success, 
though failing to meet the wants of the trade for more than a part of the 
season. 

The other undertaking was to open a wagon road from North Pepin to 
the Falls. Some slight attempts had been made to start a town at this 
place, North Pepin, a year or two earlier, but the country back being en- 
tirely unsettled, its growth was very slow. Now, however, farmers began 
to stop their canvass-covered wagons on the best spots along the route to 
the Chippewa pineries, as the mills were called, and at one time this 
village was considered a very strong point. Col. Ben. Allen, a lawyer 
and speculator, located there, and with his aid, and Mr. Colburn's, at 
Dunnville, a stage line was started from North Pepin to Chippewa Falls, 
up one day, and down the next — through by day light, for $3. Cheap 
jolting, we should think now, for a new country. 

Early in this period, one farmer located in what is now, Eau Claire 
county, the Rev. Mr. Barland who came first alone then with his amiable 
family, far in advance of any other agriculturalist, and settled on the 
farm, he and the family now occupy, on the Sparta road, two miles from 
this city. He held divine services at the mills, on stated Sabbaths for 
several years. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church, too, always alive in the interests of 
religion, and ready with its perfect church machinery to promote its wel- 
fare in remote corners through its Wisconsin Conferance, sent a preacher 
of that order into this valley, in the summer of 1852, by the name of 



44 CHIPPEWA VALLEY UISTORY. 

Mayne, a young man from England, quiet, humble, and zealous, but un 
equal to the task of planting a Christian Church amongst so many oppos- 
ing elements, as he found here ; and his appointments, at the Falls and 
Eau Claire, were discontinued after a few months, but not before a boats 
crew of wild fellows, from the Falls while stopping over night at Eau 
Claire, had assaUed him with stones and missies, while he was ad- 
dressing a meeting held for divine service in the dinning hall of Gage, 
Eeed & Co. 

The mills on the Eau Galle and Red Cedar, durbg this period, were 
steadily advancing in wealth and improvements, being secure and able to 
defy the highest freshets, they had nothing to do but grow rich by silent 
profits, and persevering industry. 

Far otherwise was it with the mill company at the Falls, who every 
winter spent large sums in erecting piers, renewing booms, and strength- 
ening their works to secure logs, a charter granting ample privileges, 
having been obtained from the Legislature for that purpose, and so deter- 
mined was the company to make all secure, that piers costing more thau 
a thousand dollars each were placed in the river ; booms with heavy iron 
fastenings were attached and every part of those vast structures seemed 
perfect, and impregnable against all freshets. The capacity of the mills 
was every year enlarged, and in the winter of 1854-5, a very large 
amount of logs were put in to supply the season's cutting ; the spring 
drive was good, lumber sold readily and at a good price and all the aflPairs 
of the company seemed flourishing, but by a strange and sudden freak of 
nature all these hopes were cut short in a day. 

But little rain had fallen from early in April until the sixth of July, 
when a dark cloud formed directly over the territory drained by the 
Chippewa, clearly visible from this place and the Falls. No rain fell here 
and only a little hail at the Falls, but dark masses of clouds could be 
seen, rolling and gathering from every direction into that one spot in the 
heavens, accompanied with fearful peals of thunder that made the earth 
tremble, and this continued for about thirty hours, appearing every mo- 
ment as though it were coming right down upon us, but actually spending 
all its force in that single locality. 

The consequence was a sudden and terribly destructive rise in the 
river, bringing down vast quantities of logs and drift wood, which drove 
with such force against those piers, that the channel was soon cleared of 
all obstructions, and more than seventy thousand logs, (twenty-five mil- 
lion feet) together with their piers and booms, were carried away and 
scattered all over the bottoms and amongst the sloughs of the lower Chip- 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 45 

pewa. The mill race, too, was badly damaged, and no more lumber could 
be made that year, which, when we consider that 100,000 feet was being 
manufactured every day before this unfortunate flood, and that 
every thousand feet was worth twenty dollars in gold, makes the loss very 
great. 

" The last straw " it is said " breaks the camels back," and this was 
a very large straw which contributed very much to the final downfall of 
the company. 

Previous to the winter of 1856, there had been, since the removal of 
Mr. Bass no adminstration of legal justice, in this valley. After the 
organization of Jackson county, these settlements were attached to that 
for judicial purposes, and as several grave offenses had been committed 
subjecting the county to great expenses to bring the offenders to trial, 
the necessity became imperative to form a new county, which was called 
Chippewa, and embraced all the settlements in the valley above the Red 
Cedar. 

The act was passed in 1853, and a town and county board 
organized the following spring. The same Legislature also created 
the eighth Judicial District, and the new county constituted part of the 
same. 

' One of the crimes referred to above, was wherein the party was accused 
of manslaughter in the first degree, was taken to Black River Falls for 
trial, but as the law creating the new District had just passed, he was 
discharged for want of jurisdiction, and strange as it may seem, was never 
again apprehended. 

The first Judicial election is the new district, resulted in the election 
of Judge S. N. Full, to the bench of this circuit, who held his first court 
at Chippewa Falls, in January, 1854, the only attorney present, being 
our now distinguished and highly esteemed Judge Humphrey, who was 
unanimously retained for the people by the County Board. 



CHAPTER XI. 

The Rev. Dr. Brunson, of Prairie du Chien, whose able contributions 

to the State Historical collections, and other learned treatise mark his 

efforts as most thorough in research, reliable in statement, and clear in 

delineation, writes under date of June 26, as follows : "In your history 



46 CHIPPEWA VALLEY UI3T0HY. 

No. 9, you speak of aii ancient mound. This reminds m3 of one I 
saw in 1842, between the Falls and Mr. Warren's, where Chi jpewa City 
now stands, and as it has a bit of history, I venture to give it : 

" The mound, as near as I can recollect, was a mile or more south of Mr. 
Warren's. It was round, or nearly so, some thirty or forty feet in 
diametre, and four or five feet high. In the centre there waa a hole re- 
sembling a rifle pit. It was this, that attracted my attention, and led to 
inquiry. There were a number of smaller ones in the vicinity, but I only 
examined this one. 

"Michael Cadott, a brother of Mrs. Warren, told me that he was 
born in the neighborhood, his father being a trader, and his post some 
five miles below Warren's on the river. He was then fifty-two years old, 
which would take his birth back to 1790. His father told him in after 
years, that during his residence there, two years, the Sauks and Foxes 
came there from below, to make war on the Chippewas, the Sauks, from 
Sauk Prairie, on the Wisconsin river, and the Foxes from Prairie du 
Chien — and had their fight on the site of this mound, and the neighbor- 
ing timber and brush. He said the pit in the large mound, 
and the pits in the smaller mounds, and some in the open prairie, 
were digged by the Sauks and Foxes, from which they fought till being 
repulsed they retreated, and never returned to fight the Chippewas 
again." 

These mounds referred to by the Eev. Doctor, I have frequently ex- 
amined exteriorly, but am not aware that any excavations have been 
made into or about them. It may be that the traditionary statements of 
Mr. Cadott have some foundation in truth, but I was inclined to think 
that these pits and mounds, and all the earth works, and tumuli found in 
the State, belong to a period more remote. And in support of my views 
will quote from the same learned author. Wis. His. Col., vol. 4, p. 225: 
"Early History of Wisconsin." "The earliest inhabitants of the dis- 
trict now included within this State, of whom we have any knowledge, 
were the ancestors of the present Indians of this vicinity, and from the 
best light I have been able to obtain upon the subject from Indian 
traditions, and from the earliest history of the country, the Dakota, or 
Sioux, were the occupants and owners of the soil, of what is now our 
entire State, together with Minnesota, and the northern parts of Illinois 
and Iowa." 

This occupancy we can trace back for about two hundred and fifty 
years, and if the growth of trees on the mounds which indicate at least 
four hundred years to the time of the mound builders, be a true indcs, it 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTOEY. 47 

13 very strange that the Sioux have no traditions of them, as there would 
liave Ibeen but one hundred and fifty years between them. This makes it 
probable that the time of the mound builders was farther back in the 
world's history than is generally supposed." If the date referred to by 
Cadott were the period in which these mounds were constructed, we 
should certainly find in and about them articles of European manufac- 
ture, but in scarcely any of them have any sucb articles been found. 
Carver always refers to them as the works of an extinct race, who, most 
likely, cultivated the soil and lived in towns and villages. 

Having made frec[uent mention of this traveler and author, and prem- 
ising that many, perhaps most of my readers, in this valley are not 
familiar with his narrations and the claim set up by his heirs to the own- 
ership of the soil, on which we live, I trust I shall be excused for a more 
extended notice of him. 

" The maps of the United States for nearly half a century (until with- 
in a short time past) had in the delineations of this quarter of the coun- 
try always upon them certain lines, embracing a large district of terri- 
tory, and denominated " Carver's Tract." 

WHO HE WAS. 

Jonathan Carver was a native of Connecticut, born in 1732, entered 
the British Army as an ensign, and rose to the rank of captain, a brave 
soldier a man of integrity and high moral worth, and possessing energy 
and enterprise. 

He left Montreal early in the spring of 1767, attended by a small 
retinue of French and half-breed voyagers and soon found himself at 
Green Bay, where was a settlement of French traders, and a mission, 
went up the Fox and down the Wisconsin, spent some time at Prairie du 
Chien, also a French trading post, and wintered at Wabasha, and other 
points on Lake Pepin. The ensuing spring he ascended the Mississippi 
to its source, and his second winter was with the Cree Indians, to the 
west of Hudson's Bay, from whence he returned in early spring to Lake 
Pepin. It is proper to state that a share of the expense of this expedi- 
tion was borne by himself, and ho published the result of his observation 
in London on his return in which he gives an account of the continual 
wars going on between the Naudowisses as he calls the Sioux and the 
Chippewas. States that he was very successful in negotiating a peace, 
and that the principal chiefs of the former, paid great deference to him 
and insisted on his returning to them to establish a trade with them, 
^ut not one word does he say of the grant of land which his heirs and 
legal representatives set up a claim to, as having been obtained from two 



48 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

of those chiefs, a deed, or rather a copy of a deed for which over their 
signature was produced, the original as was claimed being in Carver's 
own hand writing in which it was set forth on account of their good 
brother Jonathan's judicious conduct in acting as mediator between these 
two nations, and of their friendship and attachment for him. We the 
chiefs of the Naudowisses do grant to the said Jonathan, &c., the whole 
certain tract or territory of land bounded as follows: "Beginning at 
St. Anthony Falls, running along the east bank of the Mississippi river, 
to where the Chippewa joins the same, thence eastward five days travel, 
thence north six days travel and from thence again to the Falls of St. 
Anthony, on a direct straight line." 

A map of the country as drawn by Capt. Carver accompanied this 
deed, the signature to which was for one chief a mud turtle, the other a 
snake or lizard, and is dated at the groat cave council room, on the first 
of May, 1767. The names of no witnesses are appended. 

Captain Carver died in 1780, and the only special interest to us which 
attaches to his narrative or the aforesaid deed grows out of the [claims 
and pretensions set up by one Rev. Doctor Peters, and a physician named 
Lettsom his legal heirs, who in 1806, went before Congress and made 
affidavit that this grant had been recognized by King George III, 1775, 
that a commission was granted,, and means provided to enable Carver 
with 150 men to return to America and take possession of his domain, 
all of which was suddenly frustrated by the news of the battle of Lexing- 
ton, and praying Congress by virtue of the British King's approval to 
renew the grant to them. Carver's legal heirs. 

These claims were backed up by pertinacious arguments, and positive 
affidavits, but Congress could not sec it, and the whole pretentious claim 
fell to the ground. Had their title been verified, certain Englishmen 
would have got possession of this whole valley, without advancing money 
on bond and mortgage to build a railroad through it, as certain other 
Englishmen have done by virtue of a certain other grant of lands, made 
not by the chiefs of the Naudowisses, but by their great father. Uncle 
Sam. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Chapter 10 closed with the commencement of Judge Fuller's first court 
in this the Eight Judicial District, at Chippewa Fall, in January, 1854. 
The County Board appointed Samuel Allison, a competent young man 
from Louisville, Kentucky, Clerk, and Blois Hurd, a mill wright then 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 49 

residing at the Falls, Sherifi. Mucli time was consumed in organizing 
and adopting rules for the court and bar. Grand and petit juries had 
been drawn which included nearly all the elligible citizens in the county. 
Very few civil cases were on the calendar, and those unimportant. But 
the criminal list presented several indictments for grave oflfences, two for 
assault with intent to kill, others for selling liquor without license and for 
selling the same to Indians. 

H. S. Allen & Go's, root house was taken possession of by the sheriff 
for a jail. 

To the aforesaid indictments, all the accused plead "not guilty," and 
demanded time to procure counsel, which being out of the question at this 
term, the court advised the offenders to withdraw their plea of ' ' not 
guilty," and plead "guilty," which most of them did, when suitable 
fines were imposed on some, and fatherly admonition given to all, and the 
prisoners were discharged. 

Some other ludicrous things transpired at this first term over which it 
is better to draw " oblivious veil," than to burden history with mistakes 
about which "the less said the sooner mended." 

Before the close of the term the clerk complained of illness, which 
proved to be a milignant type of typhoid fever, which in less than a 
week finished his mortal career. He was a young man of genial disposi- 
tion, agreeable deportment, and highly esteemed by all who made his 
acquaintance. 

In several respects the summer of 1855, was very remarkable. The 
spring opened very early, and the trees put on their summer green several 
weeks before their usual time, but during the month of June, three heavy 
frosts occurred that killed the grass on the prairie perfectly dead, so thai 
it dried sere and crisp, the leaves on the bushes, and young trees were 
also killed, and the whole country took on the appearance of autumn or 
early winter, and the fires raged on the prairies and meadows as though 
the season had actually come for such conflagrations. These frosts ex- 
tended over the entire northern portion of the State. It would be reason- 
able to suppose that these l)lighting frosts, and the forbidding aspects of the 
country occasioned thereby would have a depresing effect on emigration, 
but other powerful causes were operating to overcome these natural, but 
seldom occurring objections, and from early spring till winter, immigrants 
continued to pour into this valley by hundreds and thousands, and specula- 
tion in real estate began, for the first time since its settlement, to get po.s- 
session of the people. 

Perhaps no people in the world have suffered so much in the desire t 



50 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

grow suddenly rich, as the early settlers of Wisconsin. Of the causes 
which led to the sudden mania to get rich by entering government lands 
in 1855-6. I will advert to a few. The sub-treasury doctrines of "Old 
Bullion," and the insane prejudice against banks engendered by the ter- 
rible'revulsions]of 1837, and the hardships imposed upon enterprise and in- 
dustry, by the almost total absence of the circulating medium, had reacted 
on the public mind, and given place to some sort of ' ' free banking sys- 
tem,' 'in almost every State. The drain of capital and labor which for 
several years had constantly depleted the means and working energies of 
the people to fit out adventurous spirits and enterprises for California, had 
now fairly begun to return the loan with interest, and to furnish what 
was supposed to be a reliable specie basis for the aforesaid banks. 

The Crimean war, which for thirty months cut off western Europe 
from its hitherto never-failing supply of grain from the stepps of Russia, 
suddenly advanced the price of wheat, and set all the grain dealers, and 
some of the bankers to speculating in American flour, and cereals, and thus 
in the space of a few months, forcing up the price of wheat to quadruple 
its former value. This, of course, advanced the value of the land it grew 
upon, and every farmer in the west wanted more land, and instead of 
paying his debts, rushed into speculation in wild lands. 

There was one other cause which powerfully stimulated the mad spiritf 
of speculation. Corrupt, gambling politicians had a year or two pre- 
vious, under the plea of patriotism, and a pretence of rewarding the 
soldiers, who had fought the nations battles, got a bill through Congress 
granting land warrants of various denominations to all oflScers and sold- 
iers who had en^-ered the army, during any of the proceeding wars of the 
republic — mostly of those who went to Mexico. These land warrants 
passed immediately, and usually for a merely nominal consideration into 
the hands of brokers and land sharks, and went to swell the absorption of 
the public lands by a class whose object was not to settle upon and im- 
prove them, but to hold them until the improvement of adjoining lands, 
the opening of highways and other public enterprises should quadruple 
their value. 

Vast quantities of these warrants were sent to agents in this valley, to 
be located on the choicest spots ; some with instruction to secure pine 
lands, others wanted "timber and prairie well watered," and large tracts 
of the best land in the valley were thus absorbed, which greatly retarded 
actual settlement, and increased the har^ [ships of that other class, whose 
object was to acquire a. home and a competence by honest toil. 

Another class of agenffe were also here during the summer in question 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 51 

■■■(ISSS), locating State and school lands, univei-sity lands, and others still 
selecting " Fox River Improvement lands." 

Such agents, while faithfully discharging their duties to the State 
usually have an eye out for some fat sinecure or private speculation of 
their own. The party in power at the State Capitol at this time contrived 
to find places for a very lai-ge number of these delegates in different parts 
of the country and among them W. H. Grleason and R. F. Wilson, who 
with compass tripod and chain as the ensigna of their especial position, 
carefully examined every locality on the Chippewa, with a view to lay off 
a village or found a city as future developments might determine. The 
rapid influx of settlers and successful operation of the lumber business, 
certainly warranted the undertaking, and these gentlemen, not only 
evinced discrimination and sound judgement, in selecting the site, which 
included the lower point at the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau 
Claire, but were very fortunate in negotiating with the owners, J. J. 
Gi-age and James Reed, for a half interest in the [town plot which by 
agreement was to be immediately surveyed by the first named parties, 
and which was recorded at Chippewa Falls, the then county seat as the 
village of Eau Claire — the first in the valley, with the names of W. H. 
Grleason, R. F. Wilson, J. J. G-age, and James Reed, as proprietors. 

Early in the summer of this year the mill owned and operated by Stone, 
Swim, George Randall & Hope, on the site of the Eau Claire Lumber 
Company's water mill, was sold to Carson, Eaton & Downs, of Eau 
Gralla, who immediately repaired and remodeled the mill, substituting re- 
action, spiral or center vent water wheels, for the old fashioned flutter 
wheels, the new inventions and improvements in saw mill machinery, . 
and a large amount was also invested in the purchase of pine lands on the 
tributaries of the Eau Claire. 

The season being late, very little was done to improve the new village, 
until the following spring, two or three adventurous spirts were sanguine 
enough to invest in lots and commence business. Adin Randall came 
from Madison here, and commenced the erection of the Eau Claire House, 
E, E. Shaw and Henry Huntington, opened a store on a small scale, and 
Mr. Chapin M. Seeley commenced the erection of his dwelling house which, 
early in the following spring was finished — the first plastered house in 
Eau Claire. At the extra session of this year, 1856, the Legislature divided 
up Chippewa county, creating the counties of Eau Claire and Dunn, with 
county seats at Eau Claire and Dunnville respectively ; attached however, 
to Chippewa county, for judicial purposes for one year. 

One event occurred at the Falls, or rather at the Blue Mill, early in 



52 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

the spring of 1855, worthy of mention. A man named Frank Donald- 
son, a fire eater, from Missouri, went from French Town on Sunday 
morning in company with Batisette Demarie to the Blue Mill, where after 
drinking all day the two quarreled, and the former shot the latter dead. 
Deceased was a young brother of Mrs. Allen. The murderer was 
iirrested, but there being no secure prison escaped, and has not been heard 
rom since. 



CHAPTER XIII 

One other circumstance occurred in the year 1855, to cause an influx 
of speculators to this region. In August and September, a large amount 
of the pine lands in this valley, not heretofore ofi"ered, were brought into 
market by the government, and as money was plenty and speculation rife 
throughout the country, operators in this class of wild lands were attract- 
ed in considerable numbers to their rivers. Little did they dream of the 
long tedious years to follow, when the taxes must be paid, and agents re- 
munerated, year after year to look after and care for them, without any 
possibility of realizing from the investment, or many would have been 
less eager to possess such wild and remote domain, and in hundreds of 
instances these annual assessments could not be met, and tax-title deeds 
accruing, gave opportunity for another and more fortunate class of opera- 
tors to invest in them. But those who were able to carry such heavy 
drafts upon their resources, of course realized handsomely in the end, as 
they had the choicest selection of land from a vast area, and of course 
took the cream. 

The actual settlers and mill owners looked on with alarm and conster- 
nation at this absorption of the pine timber, and made strenuous efforts 
to secure all their means would possibly afford ; and in order to forestall 
others, many choice tracts were pre-empted by their employees who soon 
found it necessary to realize on their investments, to cover a loan made 
by their employers, to whom they deeded the land for that purpose. 

The firm of H. S. Allen & Co., at the Falls, were less fortunate than 
some others in their efforts to purchase at the public sale at Hudson, on 
this occasion. In addition to the severe losses caused by the terrible 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY UISTORY. 53 

freshet which fell alone on the Chippewa as related in chapter ten, the 
company sustained another reverse, through the faithlessness of one of its 
agents. At considerable expense in exploring the lands about to bo 
offered and making selections the company took early and prompt 
measures as they supposed to have the necessary funds on hand to enter 
such lands as was deemed requisite for the successful prosecution of its 
business. A highly esteemed and trusted clerk, by the name of Murphy, 
was sent down the river to make collections and report at Hudson on the 
day of the land sale. Mr. Allen was there, and through the courtesy of 
other bidders was, being an actual settler, permitted to take such lands 
as he chose at the minimum price, and only needed the funds Murphy 
had collected, to secure all he coveted, and in painful suspense awaited 
the arrival of every steamboat at that point, in expectation of his coming, 
but that young worthy had very different views and having received from 
Mr. Wills, and collected from other parties, some six thousand dollars of 
the company's money took himself to parts unknown, and no clue to his 
■whereabouts has yet been found. 

Twenty-seven years had now elapsed, since Street & Lockwood erected 
the first mill in this valley, and during all this time, the settlers had not 
exercised that dearest of all rights, to an American citizen — the right of 
suffrage. A constitution had been adopted, and the territory in which 
we lived had become a State ; Grovernors, Lieutenant Grovernors, Sena- 
tors, Assemblymen, and other State officers, had been for years chosen by 
the people in other and more favored sections of the State, but no asser- 
tion or recognition of our rights to participate in such elections had been 
made. The election of town and county officers (the board being one 
and the same), at Chippewa Falls in 1853, had created very little excite- 
ment, being managed by a few individuals and resulted in the election of 
E. A. Galloway, chairman Wm. Henneman, and Henry O'Neill, super- 
visors ; H. S. Allen, treasurer ; B. F. Manahan, clerk of the board. The 
other officers were appointed. 

This board designated Eau Claire, Menomonie and Dunnville, as elec- 
4;ion precincts, but no general election for State officers. Senator and 
Assemblymen, were holden in this valley until the fall of 1855. Candi- 
dates for the Assembly had electioneered here in 1854, but no election was 
held. 

In the election of 1855, the famous Gubernatorial contest between 
Barstow and Bashford, was participated in here, and produced the still 
more famous or infamous bogus. Bridge Creek election returns. The 



54 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Twenty-eighth Senatorial District chose a membor for the first time this 
year, 1856. 

In the absence of party organization, local interests had much to do 
with the nomination of candidates for Senator. The term was for one 
year only, and the St. Croix politicians conceded the choice to Chippewa, 
and two aspirants were soon found for the position on the Democratic 
side. The first was P. M. McNally, an Irish lawyer who came from 
Hudson to Chippewa Falls, the year previous, and had some supporters 
at the former place ; the other was W. H. Gleason of Eau Claire, both 
were young unmarried men, having very little property interest, but high 
aspiration and a great deal of pluck. 

Amongst the Republicans, it was difficult to find any one in this part 
of the District willing to accept the honor 

At the Democratic convention held at Hudson, McNally came out ahead 
and was declared the unanimous choice of the party, and for some time 
it seemed as though there would be no one to compete with him for the 
honor, but, in time, local interests and the self respect of influential 
business men began to develope an unlocked for opposition. Captain 
William "Wilson, of Menomonie, was after much persuasion, induced to 
allow his name to be used in the Republican convention as a candidate, 
and although he personally made no efforts to secure it, found himself 
olected by a handsome majority. The friends of Gleason, it was observ- 
ed almost every where, not only scratched McNally but worked hard for 
Wilson on election day, so that no test of the strength of the two 
political parties was determined by it in this district but outside it was 
considered a Republican victory, and the 28th has always maintained a 
strong proclivity for these principles. 

County officers for Chippewa county were chosen at the same time, 
and although the extra session of the Legislature had passed the'act, 
creating the county of Eau Claire approved October 6th 1856, and only 
a month intervened between this election and the election of county officers 
in the new county, special pains were taken by a few influential parties at 
the county seat, to elect certain candidates for offices, in the former 
county, very distasteful to a majority of its electors. This and some other 
things which occured, growing out of the separation, and a feeling of 
rivalry which soon began to develope itself, is adverted to in the first num- 
ber of the American Sketch Book, from which I take the liberty to ex- 
tract the following comprehensive description of Eau Claire, and its 
enterprising citizens at this time : 

" This year, (1856), the country round about began to rapidly fill up 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 55 

\ 

with farmers. Merchants and mechanics located in the village. Gage & 
Reed sold out their entire interest in the mills, pine land and half the 
village plat to Chapman & Thorp. The Presbj-terian church edifice, the 
first in the valley, was commenced this year, as a mission church, under 
the supervision of the Eev. Mr. IMcNair, to whose energy and persrver- 
ance its establishment is mainly due. Messrs. Chapman & Thorp, en- 
trusted their interest during the first year to the supervision of Grilbert 
E. Porter, an energetic young man from Michigan, now a prominent 
citizen, and formelly mayor of the city. The Eau Claire House was 
erected by Adin Randall, and the Bank of Eau Claire went into opera- 
tion under the free banking law ; W. H. G-leason, president ; C. H. 
Gleason, cashier. The former, since so conspicious as Lieutenant Gover- 
nor, of Florida, was at that time a young man. A little romance is con- 
nected with his adventures here, or rather in this valley. In his peregri- 
nations while in the service of the State, he had some where along the 
stage line between this place and Black River Falls, become much inter- 
ested in a young lady, beautiful, intelligent, and agreeable, and withal 
very much inclined to favor his suit, which he pressed with much earnest- 
ness whenever he could make an interview convenient ; but the lady 
having friends at Chippewa Falls, a place that already began to look 
with distrust and jealousy upon the rising young sister village, she con- 
cluded to spend the summer there. The young bank president found he 
had a powerful rival, who, having the advantage of continual proximity, 
eventually carried off the prize, and the lady became Mrs. James A. 
Taylor, of Chippewa Falls, instead of Mrs. Wm. H. Gleason, of Eau 
Claire. How slight a cause may have induced the choice between these 
two suitors for her hand, and how widely different might have been the 
life of all these parties had she chosen the other. This was not the last 
of the rivalry between the two young villages, nor the last instance in 
which the first named village won the prize. But long and bitter as the 
struggle for rights and privileges has been between these interests, 
and often as Eau Claire has suffered defeat, she has kept right on in the 
even tenor of her way, gathering fresh strength from fresh opposition, 
and though unable to command all the advantages of her position, has 
overcome obstacles which seemed at times unsurmountable. 

In the year 1856, the Eau Claire House was completed by Adin Ran- 
dall ; Daniel Shaw 6c Co., located at Shawtown, (now the Fourth ward); 
Ingram & Kennedy bought the site for their first mill, and the race was 
projected to connect Half 3Ioon Lake with the Chippewa river, which 
converts it into a safe reservoir for logs, and the year following the village 



56 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

of West Eau Claire was laid out and recorded by Adia Randall. A 
strange composition of reckless energy, of daring and enterprise, with a 
want of punctuality and an adaptation of means to ends, was this same 
Adin Randall ; with many good business traits, he lacked some element 
of success that made him always unsafe, and lost to him the confidence of 
the business community. Two church edifices were also erected during 
the year 1857, the Congregational (also a mission church), on the West 
Side, and the Catholic on the North Side, where a town had been laid 
out by Augustus Huysen, and W. T. Galloway. A weekly newspaper, 
the Eau Claire Free Press, was started in October of this year, also an- 
other bank, called Hall & Brother's Bank. Both banking institutions 
were banks of issue. But the terrible convulsions in the financial and 
3ommercial world which commenced this year, came with crushing efi'ect 
upon these young lumbering establishments, just struggling into life ; 
sven Chapman & Thorp, who brought a capital of charter of a million into 
their investment, were reduced to great straits, and only the aid of powerful 
friends in the east saved them from bankruptcy. A new Land District 
had been created by Congress, and W. T. Galloway, appointed register, 
and N. B. Boydeu, receiver. A large amount of the choicest pine lands 
in the State were brought into market, and offered to the highest bidder, 
but scarcely any were taken, even at the mininum price of the govern- 
ment. Discouraging as the prospects were at this time, Chapman & 
Thorp bought the entire interest of Cai'son & Eaton in the Eau Claire 
mill, pine lands, water power, ice, for $125,000, and set about building 
a steam mill on the site of their lower mill. The low price of lumber, 
which prevailed for the ensuing three years, so depressed the business 
that little progress or improvement was made ; but this state of things 
was not without some benefit to the country, for many people, seeing no 
other way to live, betook thmselves to the soil, and the farming interest, 
hitherto very much neglected around this locality, now became suddenly 
developed. From a few hundred bushels of wheat in 1857, the first ever 
shipped from Eau Claire, the shipment had increased to 150,000 bushels 
in 1861, and now amounts to more than 300,000 bushels annually from 
the coui.ty. So it will be seen that this city has some solid commercial 
advantages aside from its lumber interests. But with the exception of 
the single item of wheat, all other productions of the farmers, naturally 
seeking a market at this point, find a ready sale at the hands of the 
lumbermen. A market is consequently near at hand, and the best of all 
markets — the home market. It i.s the meeting of these two great Indus ■ 
tries at this point, and the exchange of their products that constitutes the 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 57 

main traffic of Eau Claire — a trade that has constantly increased so far, 
and will continue as long as the pine lasts and is manufactured here. 
Before this fails, we hope the enterprise and good sense of our capitalists 
and manufacturers will induce them to build up other manufacturing in- 
dustries instead." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MENOMONIE AND DUNN COUNTIES. 

"History," says an old authority, "Is the record of wicked men's 
deeds and other men's misfortunes," and it follows that a community that 
cannot lay claim to some conspicuous examples of this kind is pretty 
destitute of material out of which to make an interesting narrative. 
The reader has probably observed that since 1 845, little reference has 
been made in these columns to the locality which constitutes the subject 
of this chapter ; the cause is mainly attributable to the dearth of stirring 
events of the character named. 

A brief visit with some of the earliest settlers, and enterprising busi- 
ness men, calls up a few reminisence of the past which will interest the. 
reader. 

To the visitor of to-day, witnessing the vast resources and accumula- 
tion of capital, now wielded by the firm of Knapp, Stout & Co., running 
as it does well up into the millions, it may seem almost incredible that 
twenty-nine years ago the company commenced business with a cash capital 
of only one thousand dollars, and a few "traps," and their own indomit- 
able energy and perseverance; this has been accomplished not by specula- 
tion and the adroit, lucky turning of fortunes wheel, but by actual 
creation of so much wealth added to the store of human comforts, using 
only the advantages supplied by natures abundant and common store- 
house. 

The presiding genius whose active vigilance, sagacious foresight and 
untiring industry, planned, guided and controlled their extensive opera- 
tions through every struggle and undertaking is undoubtedly Capt. Wm. 
Wilson. 

That class of reformers (not political) who maintained that in the 



56 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

allotments of life, if a husband and wife discover that they have no^ 
found "their affinity," and consequently their happiness, the connection 
should be dissolved and other attachments formed until the desired end is 
attained, may or may not be correct in theory, but however untenable 
such views may be in regard to marriage, it is undoubtedly true that in 
business relations, and the choice of an avocation, when one finds himself 
unfitted for, or continually unfortunate in the affairs of life, he may well 
conclude that he is not adapted to that kind of employment, and some- 
thing else will lead to success. So thought Captain William Wilson, 
when, after trying his hand at contracting on public works, steamboat- 
ing, and various other avocations, resulting only in disaster, he wended 
his way, solitary and discouraged, up to thct little, old, one-horse flutter 
wheel saw mill, where twenty years before. Street & Lockwood had 
manufactured, and Jefi" Davis had run away the lumber to rebuild Fort 
Crawford. 

Able friends in Fort Madison, Iowa, had promised assistance in case 
he found an opening that promised a sure return, but when the time came, 
as the case often is with the unfortunate, for actual disbursement every 
one failed him, but they were willing to induce some one else to assume 
a risk that they were not disposed to undertake. John H. Knapp, a 
young law student from the " Old Bay State," was fixed upon as the 
responsible substitute for their assurances, and well did he fill the bill. 
Mr. Knapp brought into this partnership a young, healthy organization, 
good businessj qualifications, an ambition that rejoiced at hardship, an 
unspotted reputation, and what at that time was almost as difficult to 
obtain — one thousand dollars in cash. 

In the former number reference was made to the purchase and tranfer 
of the aforesaid mill and fixtures from Mr. Black & Son, to this com- 
pany, which commenced operations in July, 1846, under the firm name 
of J. H. Knapp & Co. 

Since the departure of Allen and Branham, with their families, no 
females, or, only one, Mrs. Fanny Vail, had been bold enough to seclude 
themselves and undertake the hardships and privations of such an isolated 
abode. But Mrs. Wilson determined to share with her husband all the 
difficulties that the situation imposed. One other lady and her husband, 
Mr. and Mrs. Bullard, came up at the same time. The reader will 
remember that at this early day there was no means of ingress or egress 
to any part of this valley except by the the river — the "keel boat" 
propelled by men with poles, going back and forth on the "running 
boards " the lower end of every pole being furnished with a steel pointed, 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 59 

iron socket, which was thrust against the bottom, while against the other 
end pressed with all his might if need be the shoulder of the "living 
engine." whose duty it was to drive the boat over sand-bars and rapids 
to its destination. 

On the first trip up the Red Cedar, the river being low and the boat 
heavily laden, got aground four miles below their destined home, and 
these ladies with their children, took the foot path winding along the side 
hills, and over the steep rocky bluffs to their new homes. 

Of the many amusing incidents related by these ladies of their first 
experiences in their secluded and nearly embargoed domicil, I can find 
room for only one. Soon after their arrival, Mrs. Blois Hurd came with 
her husband, who was a mill-wright, to reside at Gilbert's mill, three 
miles below, and for some months, was the only woman residing there — a 
beautiful intelligent lady, but whose health was very delicate. Near the 
close of a day in September, Mr. Gilbert, (the old gentleman) came up 
and requested the immediate assistance of one or both of these neighbor 
women, for Mrs. Hurd who had been taken very ill. How they were to 
get there, was now the difficult problem to solve, to walk three miles over 
the difficult, intricate foot-path, after the fatigues of the day, was too 
much for their strength. Their husbands were ready to accompany 
them, and a bright thought seized one of the party, a raft with oars all 
on, " ready to pull out," lay just below the mill ; to *' tie loose" was 
only the work of a moment, but not one of the men had ever run those 
rapids, or knew how to handle a raft, but in high glee away floated the 
party, their hearts full of benevolence, and their heads with novel ideas 
of traveling ; down they went with wonderful speed, and hair-breadth 
escapes from wreck, over the first falls, but on the second chain, where 
the intricate channel wound along between great boulders, the necessity 
for the guiding hand of an experienced pilot soon became painfully appar- 
ent, which was immediately intensified by the bow running high and dry 
upon a rock, the whole craft turned and twisted, the stern was forced 
down by the rapid current, and threatened to break up the whole thing, 
that a moment before floated so gaily. No boat was near, night was 
coming on, the water was deep all around them, and there they were in- 
extricably fast, nothing now remained but to wade ashore, and cautiously 
they followed Mr. Gilbert, supporting each other, as waist-deep in water, 
whirling and eddying between the smooth boulders, they made their way 
to terra firma, and climbed the steep bank to the trail, and in their wet 
garments, drabbling in the sand, walked on to the residence of the sick 
lady, after again getting wet, by fording Gilbert's Creek. This we should 
consider, practicing benevolence under difficulties. 



-60 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

The social condition of these settlements was soon after improved by 
better means of communication, and the addition of other families, and a 
pretty widow, a Mrs. Clare, who however was not long permitted to wear 
her weeds, for the following April, 1S47, Esquire Bass was sent for, from 
Chippewa Falls, who gave the legal sanction to the desire of Mr. William 
Whitcomb. for her to take his name, the first lawful marriacc known to 
have been consumated there. 

But two years later, in 1849, when Thomas Piercwell and Margaret 
Scott found that it was not well to dwell alone, and could only be happy 
united, all form and semblance of law and its power to gladden then- 
hearts, had taken its flight from this valley, so they fell back upon their 
inalienable rights, and a written contract much after the Quaker style, 
setting forth their avowals to love, cherish, and cleave to each other until 
death should them part, was duly signed, witnessed and delivered. 

Even down to 1855, when the company's chief clerk, Mr. S. B. French, 
and Miss Virginia BuUard, were married, no legal or clerical sanction 
could be obtained this side of the big woods, and Captain Wilson 
was dispatched to Hudson for the Rev. Mr. Thayer, to tie the silken 
knot. 



CHAPTER XV. 

MEXOMOXIE AND DUXN C0UNTIE.5 COXTIM'ED. 

Most men, like Ortogrul, when he saw in a vision, the avenues of 
wealth floating towards him, one a foaming mountain stream, the 
other a ripling rill, if told to choose between them, would say as he did, 
"let the golden stream be quick and violent ;" But not all men would 
be so wise as he. when looking again he behold the former dry and dusty, 
while the latter increased in volume, and, with returning consciousness, 
" determined to grow rich by silent profit and persevering industry," 

Whether the members of the firm of Knapp, Stout & Co., had read 
■and profited by Adison's ideal type of the true method of accumulating 
wealth, is not essential to our purpose ; but we see in the slow, cautious 
onward steps of this now opulent Company, a remarkable instance and 
exemplification of the "Spectators" rule for becoming rich. In one 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 61 

essential particular, this company inaugurated a new and better system. 
Hitherto every mill Company on this river, had sold whiskey to their 
men, and at the expiration of the terra of service, almost every one found 
himself in debt. Their employers justified themselves on the plea, that 
these men would have liquor, and if they did not keep it for them, a 
" saloon would be started at their very door," and they might as well or 
better do it, than for some worthless scape grace of a gambler to get the 
profits of the trafic. And every invoice of goods ordered by any of these 
establishments included as the first item, from one to fifty barrels of 
whisky, " Groodhues " best, and a curious record was, the account against 
one of these old soldiers at the end of the year, running about thus : 

1st. 3 drinks, 25; 1 plug tobacco, 75; ^1.00. 2nd. 1 pint whisky, 
50 cts.; 6 drinks, 50 ; .^1.00. Ar'd so on month after month. 

Not after this fashion did J, H. Knaop & Co., commence their opera- 
tions in this valley, and although repeatedly told, that the business would 
not pay without the profits of whisky, they paid not the slightest atten- 
tion to the warning, but neither dealt in strong drinks, themselves, nor 
allowed others to bring it upon their premises, if they could prevent it, 
and it is due to this stringent policy in opposing intemperance, that so 
few crimes have been committed in that locality, it being a notable fact, 
that the Circuit Court Calendar exhibits no instance of a capital offence 
being charged against any persons in Dunn county, since its organization,. 
in 1857. 

The only murder that is known to have been committed on the Red 
Cedar, since the death of McCann, was the killing of William Wickham, 
in 1850, by an Indian known as the brother of the " Big Scoundrel." 

For five years the company kept the one little old mill running day 
and night,|carefully husbanding its earnings, paying off old claims against 
the property, and accumulating means to build a new and larger establish- 
ment on the main stream, and in August, 1851, had the satisfaction of 
cutting lumber in this great mill, then the largest and best appointed of 
any on the Chippewa waters ; the miU-wright was the well-known Mr. 
Downs, who introduced the Stearns water wheel, and all the modern im- 
provements of that time. 

In 1848, another mill was erected on the Red Cedar, about half way 
between this mill and the mouth, by Messrs. Hurd, Bullard & Co. , and 
with good financial management would have done a good business. It is 
now owned by the Menomonio company. The partners in this 
company residing at Menomonie, are in some respects lessfashionab 
than most men of affluence, being blessed with large families, and to pro- 



162 CHIPPEWA TALLEY HISTORY. 

vide for their education together with the children of other families, 
and to secure religious instruction as well, a school house was erected in 
1854, and the services of the Rev. Joshua Pittman were c igaged to fill 
the position of both teacher and preacher, an arrangemc. t which con- 
tinued some four or five years, and was probahly the first .-chool opened 
in this valley. It was succeeded in 1856, by ^he regularly organized dis- 
trict school. The first meeting held in this place, or in the county for 
divine service, was in the summer of 1852, by the Kev. 3Ir. Mayne, be- 
fore mentioned. During the summer of 1855, most of the pine lands on 
the Red Cedar were brought into market and considerable quantities sold 
to non-resident parties, one of whom was the Hon. C. C. Washburn, who 
also took some 12,000 acres on other branches of the Chippewa at the 
same time. h latter entries were sold in a lump, the year following, 

first to Morrison & Woodman, and by them to Messrs. D. Shaw & Clark-, 
father of Dewitt C. Clark, of Eau Clarie. In order to make the former 
available, Mr. Washburn erected a steam saw mill at the foot of Nine 
Mile Slough, on the Chippewa, and about the same distance from the con. 
fluence of the Chippewa and Red Cedar. This was in 1857, and about 
the same time Mr. Downs erected a dam across the Red Cedar, and built a 
mi[l at Dowsnville. These last named establishments were rather sickly. 
Starting into being just at the inoportune moment of that terrible year 
of crushed hopes and broken promises, of fruitless endeavors and financial 
ruin, neither ever recovered from the staggering blow, and a few years 
later these mills and the pine timber land belonging to them were sold to 
the more staple company at Menomonie. In the spring of 1849, Perry 
Curtis and his brother opened what was afterward a large farm, near the 
Eau Galle mill, in company with Carson & Eaton who furnished the 
means, and were to share the property equally. This was the first farm 
commenced in the county, but the next year Mr. Franklin Ames, from 
Massachusetts, selected lands near by on which himself and sons opened 
out farms in the following year, 1850, and the first district school in the 
county was organized here in 1856. 

In March, of this year, 1856, the act was passed to organize the county 
of Dunn, with Dunnville for the county seat. The election for county 
officers was not held until some months later, and the first term of the 
Circuit Court was held in September, 1857. S. C & E. B. Bundy 
were the first lawyers settled in the county, one of whom was elected dis- 
trict attorney. 

Like many other new counties, the question soon arose for the removal 
of the county seat. A few parties had invested in Dunnville property, 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTOKY. 63 

supposing it would continue the permanent shire town, but it made feeble 
resistance. And in 1859, under legal provisions for a vote of the people, 
a large majority were in favor of Menomonie, which had that year been 
laid out, and immediately began to assume a high position in the sister- 
hood of villages. 

The test of executive ability, either in public or private affairs, is ex- 
hibited in making appointments to subordinate positions, and few business 
firms have discovered wiser discrimination, or been more fortunate in the 
choice of agents than Knapp, Stout & Co. In their early struggles a 
young smooth faced, long nosed, keen eyed man, a native of Prairie du 
Chien, was selected as foreman to take charge of the boating, and running 
lumber in summer, and in organizing logging camps in winter, driving in 
spring, etc., energy, decision, untiring industry and unswerving fidelity, 
soon won the entire confidence of his employers, who in 1860, offered 
him a fourth interest in the fast accumulating property, on favorable 
terms, and Andrew Tainter became a millionaire. And now his palatial 
residence out vies all others in the village in its interior appointments, its 
lawns, fountains, deer park, costly statuary, and in the taste and elegance 
of all its surroundings, evincing a degree of culture and refine- 
ment, which seems to any one acquainted with his rough and tumble 
early life, utterly incompatible with his, to say the least, not elevating 
associations. 

But as success is the criterian, and touch stone by which all human 
estimates and conditions are determined, Andrew has won the highest 
consideration 



CHAPTER XVI. 



CHIPPEWA COUNTY. 



We took leave of H. S. Allen & Co. in the fall of 1855, at the land 
sale. Every interest and movement in the settlement, business, and social 
relation of the entire county were more or less dependent upon, or identi- 
fied with this company, and affected by the heavy losses it sustained. In 
ihe summer of 1856, the surrounding country received large accession'. 



64 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

of farmers ; the village of Chippewa Falls was laid off ; a dam wag 
thrown across the Chippewa river at a point nearer the mill ; a large 
three story hotel was erected on the site of the Tremont House (lately 
burned) ; the Presbyterian church edifice was commenced as a mission 
church under the indefatigable labors of Rev. W. W. McNair. Early 
in the spring of this year, Thaddeus and Albert Pound were employed 
by H. S. Allen & Co., as clerks, who came with their families from the 
Empire State, and located as permanent residents of the place. James 
A. Taylor was another clerk in the same establishment, who in the suc- 
ceeding fall, in company with Frederic Bussy, started the first store not 
connected with the mill, at the Falls. As indicating the opportunities 
presented by a new, and especially a lumbering country, and as an evi- 
dence that merit and ability will be discovered and appreciated, no matter 
how obscure their possession, I will give an account of this last named 
person, Frederick Bussy was born in Prussia, emigrated to the United 
States just as this country became involved in war with Mexico, and 
immediately enlisted in one of our New York regiments, in which he 
served as a private until the close of the war, and was severely wounded 
in one of the terrible charges made by our troops at Molino Del Ray. 
After his discharge from the hospital at New Orleans, to which he had 
been removed until his recovery, he found his way up to St. Louis, where 
in the fall of 1848, Mr. Wills employed him, with several others also re- 
turned soldiers from Mexico, and sent them up to Chippewa Falls to do 
such work as they were able. As the writer was running a logging camp 
at Bob's creek, and needed men, Bussy was sent up to him. He could 
speak scarcely a word of English, and never had had an axe in his hands, 
was utterly ignorant of the work I had for any man to do, and after try- 
ing his hand at several kinds without success, he said he could cook, and 
wanted to try his hand at that. The cook I had required an assistant, 
so Fred took the place, and soon made me understand that if the wood 
was cut for him he could manage the business alone. This enabled me 
to put the former cook at some other business. Little did I think that 
this obscure and almost helpless soldier (Bussy) possesed business quali- 
fications that would soon elevate him to positions of trust, and the man- 
agement and control of extensive operations. But having mastered our 
language, he was found to be a good accountant, which secured him a 
position with the aforesaid company, and in 1856, commenced business 
with J. A. Taylor, as before stated. He was married the same year to 
Miss Galloway, a very estimable lady, and was elected county treasurer 
in 1858. The firm of Bussy & Taylor erected, or rather completed the 



ClIirPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 65 

Gravel Island steam mill, which was managed with considerable ability 
tintil its destruction bj fire in 1862. Mr. Bussy died in 1866, at Winona 
Minnesota. 

Of the other emigrants to Chippewa county this year, the most prom- 
inent were Rodman Palmer, Elijah Pound — father of Thaddeus and Albert, 
James Woodruff, Mr. Watermati, Mr. Skinner, Mr. Fuller, Mr. Vanloon, 
I. P. Sheldon, A. Walker, Stephen Brown, Bonneville and Loveland, all 
well known citizens who came with their families. 

As this year marks a new era in the social condition of this valley, it 
may be interesting before taking final leave of the old regime, to speak 
more at lenth of its peculiar aspects. Without schools, churches, and 
literary culture, the elements of social intercourse are very much restrict- 
ed in a neighborhood, especially where several races and nationalities are 
represented ; balls being the only available resource from which all dis- 
tinctions of race, color, language, family, or worldly position was utterly 
banished. Every winter several of these were given in different localities, 
some of which were grand affairs, and having frequently attended with 
my family at these gatherings, I will try to describe a grand ball of that 
period. It required about all the women in the valley to afford an op- 
portunity, by keeping them constantly on the floor, for every man to get 
a partner for a single cotiUion set, and accordingly, having sent out invi- 
tations to every settlement and family, the party giving the ball would 
send two men and team with conveyance to every lady whose presence 
was considered doubtful, and to these it was no use to make excuses, she 
"must" go, and nothing short of severe illness would induce them to leave 
the house without her. One of the long dining halls of the mill compa- 
ny is cleared of tables and most of its benches, and a motley group 
are assembled, many of whom are the dark-haired daughters of the 
forest, more, a shade lighter, are from Her Majesty's dominion of Cana- 
da, a few from the Red River of the North, (now Manitoba), and the 
rest from all parts of the country, and while the company are assembling; 
greetings are heard in half a dozen different languages, while an invita- 
tion to drink awaits every new comer of the men, and by the time the 
music strikes up several are too far gone to take part in the enjoyments. 
A survey of the room discloses about three gents to one lady, so there is 
no danger of any one of the ladies drooping as a "wallflower." It also 
discloses some half-dozen hard-visaged men, mostly from the South, with 
revolvers and bowie knives carried conspicuously about their persons, and 
who are ready to rope in and fleece some unsuspecting new comer, or to 
pick a quarrel with some one against whom an old grudga ex'sts. For 



66 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

several years, Dan McCann, "Old Dan." as he is called, was the only 
hope of any terpsichorean assembly iu this valley, as it was ti) the touch 
of his fiddle bow that every light, fantastic toe must yield active or pas- 
sive obedience. He knew nothing of music as a science, but could play 
a number of marches, cotillions, and one waltz, very well by rote, and 
woe to the hapless ball or party that failed to secure his indispensable ser- 
vices. A marked feature of all such gatherings was the perfect equality 
manifested between all parties, their perfect freedom from envy and petty 
heart-burning on account of dress, family, or other distinctions; in fact, 
they were perfect free-and-easies, and being about the only social recrea- 
tion, were regarded with much favor by all parties, and exerted a very 
healthful influence, the only drawback being the presence of the black- 
legs, who sometimes made things lively by promiscuous shooting amongst 
the dancers and into a crowd whenever a dispute arose at the gaming 
table and the opposite party touk refuge among them. Such is the pic- 
tare of the highest social enjoyment in the good old time. 

When John R. Jewett, the English blacksmith, found himself safe and 
sound on board the good ship Boston, at Nootka Sound, Vancouver's Is- 
land, where for three and a half years he had been held a prisoner by 
Maquiuuy, an Indian Chief, who, with his savage followers, had, by 
treachery in an unguarded moment, slain the captain and crew of a New- 
buryport northwest coast trading ship, saving on\^ Jewett and one other 
man, which they plundered and destroyed, preserving all the iron about 
her forgo, tools, and her blacksmith, whom they compelled to do their 
work, and to marry a chief's daughter, by whom he had two children — 
he bade good-bye to Maquiuuy and all his chiefs, but not one word of re- 
gret at parting with his children. 

When a mere lad I read Jcwett's narrative, and could never refrain 
from denouncing him for the heartless, inhuman conduct, so destitute of 
paternal regard that he makes no reference to either his children or their 
mother. 

In a preceding number I have stated that many of the earlier settlers 
took to themselves wives of the native population. The influx of white 
women during this and the previous year, '55-6, induced almost every 
one to discard these women, with a view to new, and socially more ad- 
vantageous, attachments ; but in no instance were the children forsaken, 
or their welfare neglected ; ample provision, according to their means, 
being provided for their sustenance and education, and in most instances 
the mother also was cared for, indicating a higher appreciation of pa- 
rental responsibility than the English blacksmith entertained in 1800. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 67 

'The moral aspect of such connections, formed and dissolved as they were 
at the pleasure of one party, will present itself to every one according 
to their respective ideas of marriage, but no one will withhold their ap- 
proval and highest commendation of the very few men whose family ties 
were strong enough to induce them to forego all social considerations and 
cleave unswervingly to the mother of their children. 

Taking its rise in the timbered regions far to the north, where the 
chilling winds from Lake Superior prevent the melting of the snow on 
its upper branches until the ice is dissolved in the river at this point, the 
Chippewa has seldom broken up with an ice-freshet capable of inflicting 
much damage to piers, booms, and other improvements placed in its bed, 
but the spring of 1858 was an exception to former precedents in this re- 
spect, the ice breaking up for many miles above before its winter force 
and volume had abated, and coming down in jams of such crushing 
power that everything in its path was swept away ; the new dam, several 
piers, a large share of the booms, and a vast amount of logs were min- 
gled with the ice in one common ruin. 

To a successful b^ipness man whose integrity has for long years never 
been suspected, or his ability to meet his obligations questioned, when on 
surveying his affairs he, for the first time, sees bankruptcy staring him in 
the face, is about as wretched a piece of humanity as the world affords. 
Innumerable expedients are conjured up to obtain relief, some, perhaps, 
not very honorable ; in constant dread of some sudden disruption in his 
plans, his ideas become confused as to what will be right and honorable ; 
at one moment he resolves to pay every claim as long as there is a dollar 
to pay with, and at the next, his wife and children engrossing his 
thoughts, he can not see them suffer ; come what will, his first and last 
duty is to provide for them. But how shall it be done? Is there any 
way by which he can save his honor, and something that shall shield his 
children from want ? 

Such were the gloomy forebodings of Mr. Allen when, in the winter of 
1856-7, he saw the tide of adversity bearing down upon the house of 
which he was the head, and threatening to bury every hope. Hitherto 
the company had met its obligations with reasonable promptness, but 
now note after note must go to protest, and soon judgments would nail 
every foot of land, and not a dollar then could be saved for the little 
ones. The company was now composed of H. S. Allen, Jacob Wills, 
Moses Rmes, and E. A. Gralloway. Rines held in his own right the title 
to a quarter-section of land upon which the city is now built, and consid- 
ered that if any game was to be played, he held a pretty good hand. He 



68 CHIPPEWA VALLEY UlSTORT. 

was a drunken, worthless fellow, who never ought to have been in that 
position ; he had kept sober long enough at one time to marry a beautiful 
and accomplished woman, and might have been happy but for his aban- 
doned habits, but in self-defence she was soon compelled to leave him, and' 
Mr. Allen also determined to rid the firm of such a burden. 

That "there is a tide in the affairs of men" is so old that it need not 
be repeated here, but is very applicable, and no doubt H. S. Allen 
thought that for him it was fast on the ebb when he bought Moses Rines' 
interest in the firm for ten thousand dollars, and borrowed fifteen hun- 
dred of it to make the first payment, of a maiden sister, and mortgaged- 
the aforesaid quarter-section to secure its payment, but whether he could 
discern through the darkening vista of coming events, the gleam of 
brighter skies beyond, is known only to himself, but to this single stroke 
of luck, tact, or good management, is due his present easy, perhaps 1 
may eay opulent, circumstances. 

Of the many expedients to afford relief from the present pressure, one 
was resolved upon. A common stock company was organized, and one 
thousand shares of one hundred dollars each represented the property. 
Various parties from abroad were induced to take stock, which relieved 
the old firm in some measure, and in the summer or fall of 1857 the new 
company commenced operations under the name of the Chippewa Falls 
Lumber Company, H. S. Allen, President ; one Jordon, Vice-President; 
a lumber merchant of Dubuque, Treasurer ; John Judge, Secretary. 

The old company went into liquidation, its liabilities being assumed by 
the new — a vast accumulation of interest-bearing debt. John Judge 
was a thorough business man, but was appalled by this immense burden ;. 
with a sound currency and hopeful times, he would have raised the com- 
pany's credit and gone on, but after one summer's fair trial, the officers 
met by agrsement at some place in the interior of Illinois, divided the 
earnings amongst them, and the poor stockholders were nowhere. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

In deference to the wishes of several friends, I will refer again to the 
forged certificates of the Bridge Creek election returns. 

At the first election for State officers under the present constitution, 
held on the second Monday in May, 1848, the Democratic party carried 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 69 

the State and maintained its ascendancy, with a working majority in both 
branches of the Legislature, until this year, '55. 

In the incipient organization of any government, the promotion of per- 
sons to positions of trust and official power, whether by the executive or 
the choice of the people, is usually attended by the appointment of a 
large per cent, of corrupt, faithless, and designing men to carry on the 
government. 

The Democratic party seems to have been especially unfortunate in 
this State, and many unscrupulous demagogues found favor with both the 
executive and the people. In a strong political party long in power, it 
seems to be natural for such men to obtain places of trust and honor. 

I state it as a matter of history and not as a partizan, when I say, and 
the record shows, that tho party in power at this period in this State 
was fearfully corrupt, and^its leaders and parasites seemed determined, 
no matter at what cost, to hold on to the offices, whether the people willed 
it or not. 

The selection, management, and disposal of the school, university, and 
other State lands, afforded a pretext for the employment of a great num- 
ber of agents, who, being scattered all over the State, even to the re- 
motest corners, could always be relied upon to do any dirty work for the 
party when occasion required it. 

The Democracy of this State had been compelled to go back on its 
early record and follow Judge Douglass in his squatter sovereignty doc- 
trines ; which alienated a great many of the most intelligent free-soil 
Democrats, and added to the glaring corruptions in every department of 
the government, both national and State, so demoralized the party that 
its leaders became very apprehensive of the result of the election in No- 
vember, 1855, and determined to resort to fraud, if necessary, to carry it. 

There are some people who consider an election a mere farce, the turn- 
ing of a card and "repeating," ballot-box stuffing and forging election re- 
turns, just as legitimate a way to get into or hold office, as to be fairly 
ohcsen by the free suffrage of the people ; and the Democratic directory 
at Madison, on this occasion, seems to have incorporated the worst fea- 
tures ot these dangerous views into its policy, and resorted to any and 
all these methods, varying in different localities, according to circum- 
stances, to carry this election. Having reliable and willing instruments 
in this place to do their bidding, it was deemed a safe point to operate 
in, if necessity required. 

A member of the State Board of school lands came here from Madi- 
son a few days before the election, to inspect the work done during the 



70 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

summer by its agents, and the subjoined memorandum was drawn up as 
the outline of proceedings. "If Barstow received a clear majority, noth- 
ing was to be done but congratulate, etc. If Bashford received an over- 
whelming majority, nothing was to be done but to prepare to abdicate. 
But if a few hundred votes were necessary to overcome Bashford's ma- 
jority, they were to be manufactured, and if new and unheard of election 
precincts were required, they too were to be manufactured as the safest 
way of multiplying votes." Such was the programme of proceeding, 
and special means of communication were called in that there might be 
ample time to carry out the dark plot. 

Now, every one at all familiar with the subject, knows that if there 
had been any such voting precincts in the county as "Bridge Creek" and 
"Spring Grove," that it was the duty of the inspectors of election at 
those points to make their returns to the county board of canvassers at 
Chippewa Falls, but that board knew of course that no such precincts 
existed, and therefore no such returns would be entertained for a moment; 
the bogus returns, therefore, from these bogus precincts, were sent di- 
ractly to the board of State canvassers at Madison, and ijicredible as 
the statement may appear, that board actually received and counted 
these votes so informally and illegally returned, and declared Barstow 
and the whole ticket elected by a meager majority based on these forged 
returns, and drank their champagne and cracked their jokes over it as 
though they had done something smart. Already in the chair, Barstow 
retained his place and made a grand parade with a costly supper, to which 
all the magnates of the party were invited, and thought perhaps the 
fraud could be concealed, but on a writ of quo warranto sworn out by 
the opposite party, an investigation was had before the Justices of the 
Supreme Court, wherein it was shown, first, that the returns were infor- 
mal and illegal ; second, that no such voting precincts existed in Chippe- 
wa county as Bridge Creek and Spring Grove ; and lastly, that although 
the two precincts purported to be fifty miles apart, and the certificates 
bore the same date, the two half-sheets of foolscap on which they were- 
written fitted together so nicely as to prove conclusively that they had 
once been one and the same sheet. 

No other alternative existed than for the Court to reverse the decision 
of the State Board of Canvassers, and declare Bashford the legal gov- 
ernor of this State, and the honest people began to hope that now we 
should have an honest, capable administration of the State government ;, 
but, alas for human hopes, bribery and the most venal corruption charac- 
terized the next two years, and it seemed as though the whole body poli- 
tic was tainted with fraud and given over to work iniquity. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 71 

In Marcb of this year, 1856, Congress passed the act donatmg in trust 
to the State of Wisconsin, all the alternate sections of land embraced 
within certain parallels along the lines of certain railroads therein de- 
scribed ; one of which; commencing at Portage City, was to extend to 
Tomah, and thence to St. Oroix county, and of course must cross this 
valley at some point, and almost everybody supposed that the road would 
be built immediately, and speculators were everywhere on the alert to 
know where that point was to be. Little did they dream that fifteen 
years must elapse, and the grant be twice renewed, before we should hear 
the notes of a locomotive whistle among us. But we learned to gat along 
very well without it. 

Some of the wildest and most visionary schemes ever thought of, grew 
out of this land grant, some of them disastrously affecting parties in this 
valley. 

Byron Kilbourne, of Milwaukee, organized a company to take this 
grant and construct the road and placed hi'nself at their head. Several 
million dollars were issued in stock, and a bombastic advertisement or 
manifesto, setting forth among other things, that the road would be built 
with very trifling assessments on the stock, that so rich and vast were the 
franchises of the road, that bonds could be negotiated to build and equip 
the road, and that whoever was lucky enough to secure this stock, would 
obtain its dividends without any assessments, and proceeded immediately 
on the assembling of the legislature, to put the stock where it would do the 
most good — that is, to bribe the members of the legislature, and the Gro- 
vernor, to confer the land grant upon that company. The downfall of 
such an organization could easily be predicted, and the sequel of its 
history was one of infamous swindling, and contemptible petty cheats 
and frauds upon the unsuspecting laborers employed on the work, and 
farmers and merchants who could be gulled. Various lines or routes 
were examined for this road, some crossing the Chippewa far down, and 
others above the Falls. Keports of these surveys would at any time be 
considered very uncertain data on which to base a heavy investment at 
a given point, but these or something still less reliable, gave rize to one 
of the wildest and most visionary speculations ever conjured up in the 
brain of the most reckless adventurer. In an extract from the Eau 
Claire number of the American Sketch Book, in a previous chapter it 
was stated that the Bank of Eau Claire went into operation this year, 
'56, under the free banking la-y, W. H. Grleason, President, and C. H. 
Gleason, Cashier. Its principal manager was C. M. Seley, a man ofi 
considerable experience in financial afiairs, cautious and conservative in 



72 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

liis operations, and at first inspired public confidence in tbe hank as a 
safe institution for deposit or exchange. The summer of 1856 was marked 
for reckless speculation, but most operators had learned by the following 
spring, '57, to go slow ; not so, however, with the-two young proprietors 
of half the village of Eau Claire ; flushed with their success in the en- 
terprise and the rapid sale of lots during the previous eighteen months, 
they felt strong for new operations. It has always been supposed that 
some motive not discovered on the surface inspired this transaction, but 
H. F. Wilson utterly denies any other incentive than legitimate specula- 
tion, but that any men who had ever possessed business tact and foresight 
enough to accumulate such a sum, should seize upon a random re2)ort 
made by some subordinate engineer, that "the Tomah & St. Croix rail- 
road would cross the Chippewa at 'Neil's creek." and put twenty thou- 
sand dollars into lands at that point as a lucrative investment, seems al- 
most incredible. But such is the positive fact, and a village plat was laid 
out and recorded as Chippewa City, a few lots sold, and a saloon or two 
started, and one-tenth of the sum then paid would to-day buy every lot 
and acre of their investment. 

There were, probably, some other parties involved in this unfortunate 
and short-sighted affair, and coming just at the time of that terrible 
crisis in the west, when all values were tumbling, and all business opera- 
tions paralyzed or utterly prostrated, this hopeless speculation proved 
very disastrous to all concerned. The bank soon became sickly, and 
eventually was compelled to go into liquidation, mainly on account, as 
3Ir. Seley said, of the withdrawal of deposits so absurdly invested at 
the foregoing point. 

The prevailing opinion at tlic time of this whole transaction was, that 
iti was undertaken to spite Chippewa Falls, and with the hope of building 
up a rival town. If such was the motive by which it was inspired, little 
sj'mpathy should be felt for the losers. 

■ One other matter of public importance came up this year, '57, calcu- 
lated to engender ill-feeling botNveen these two struggling villages. A 
new land district was formed by act of Congress, the bill for which was 
introduced by Mr. AVashburn, in the Hou.se, with Chippewa Falls as its 
headquarters, but just before it was put on its final ])assage, a motion 
was made t<> amend by inserting Eau Claire instead. The claims of each 
were asserted with great pertinacity by its respective friends, but it was 
fi-nally agreed that its location should be designated by the President of 
the United States, who fixed upon Eau Claire. The Commissioner of 
the General Land OSce took immediate steps to carry ths law into effect. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 73 

and the President appointed Dr. W. T. Galloway as Register, and N. 
B. Boyden as Receiver, of public lands at this place. The former es- 
tablished his office in the new village of North Eau Claire, just laid out 
by himself and Augustus Huyssen. 

The principal persons who settled in Eau Claire this year were Rev. 
A. Kidder, of the Congregational Church, and family, Joseph Gr. Thorp 
and family, the young and genial Peter Wyckoff, Jackson brothers, John 
Wilson, Ingram and Kennedy, George A. Buffington, Dr. F. R. Skinner, 
AV. P. Bartlett, A. Meggett, and many others whose names will hereafter 
appear. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Individuals are integral parts of a vast whole, and corresponding to 
the rise and fall of nations, of dynasties, in the history of the world, 
may be reckoned the rise, progress, and decay of influential organiza- 
tions in larger communities, and a revolution or the downfall of a dynas- 
ty in a State are not more legitimately the subjects of history than the 
failure of a long-established mercantile or manufacturing establishment 
in a city or country ; although younger, more energetic, or more for- 
tunate men may succeed in their places and positions in both instances, a 
kind of mournful interest attaches to those who once filled so important 
.a place in the affairs of this life but who must now subside into obscurity. 

At the close of chapter sixteen, it was stated that the officers of the 
■company known as the Chippewa Falls Lumber Company, which had 
succeeded H. S. Allen 6c Co., met at someplace in Illinois and divided 
the summer's earnings ; it would be nearer the mark to say that some of 
the officers had been dividing the avails of their operations through the 
entire summer, as fast as the lumber could be converted into money ; the 
result was, nothing for the creditors or for the stockholders, but the men 
were careful to take themselves out of harm's way, if their creditors or 
an exasperated community should choose to seek redress. But for Messrs. 
Allen and Galloway, whose families were here, and who, having been 
members of the old firm, became special objects of "attachment" by 
iheir old creditors, but their devoirs were paid by, prosy, and the U. S. 



74 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Marshal made it his especial business to hutt these two men down for 
several weeks, with a warrant of arrest, as though they had been guilty 
of some crime. And even the men whose wages remained unpaid, 
threatened violence to their persons, under the mistaken idea that large 
sums had been concealed, and it was with great difficulty that they could 
be satisfied to the contrary. 

Before spring, however, all these difficulties were amicably adjusted, 
and the entire property was surrendered to the creditors. Andrew 
Gregg, an eminent lawyer, who had lately settled at the Falls was ap- 
pointed receiver by Judge Miller, of the United States District Court ; 
the mill and fixtures were leased to Aain Randall, of Eau Claire, and as 
no freshet or other mishap occurred, was enabled to pay the rent, al- 
though times were so hard that there was little or no profit in any lum- 
bering operations. 

But this depression of the lumbering interests was not without its- 
benefits, as it induced great numbers of operators to resort to farming, 
and in the fall of ISoS Chippewa county shipped the first wheat — about 
seventeen thousand bushels. It was handled in the interest of H. S. 
Allen, but not in his name, and was worth there forty-five to fifty cents 
a bushel ; this marked a new era in the business operations of the coun- 
ty, and although the home market caused by the various lumber indus- 
tries has been immense, the county has shipped more or less wheat nearly 
every year since. 

A few noteworthy incidents have been omitted. A fatal accident oc- 
curred in the hay-meadow on O'Neil's creek, where the two brothers, 
George and Edward Warren, nephews of Mr. Warren, previously men- 
tioned in these pages, were at work haying ; the latter, with a rifle in 
his hands, was passing through a thicket, and by some means the trigger 
was caught by a twig, discharging the contents into his body in the re- 
gion of his heart. He lived a few hours, and was greatly mourned, be- 
ing highly respected by all who knew him. 

In 1851 an incident occurred to the writer that may interest some 
reader. It happened at Frenchtown. I was running some cribs of 
square timber over the falls, and, as usual, the boys drank pretty freely, 
and being a little "set up," one of them took it into his head that he 
must go home right away — he lived in Illinois — and must have a settle- 
ment then and there, I asked him to defer it until the last crib was 
over, when quick as thought he caught up a loaded shot-gun and dis- 
charged the contents at me, the shot taking effect in and just above both 
knees, shattering the left knee-pan pretty badly, and inflicting serious 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 75 

wounds in the fleshy part of the right thigh. I was facing and hastening 
toward him with a view to wrench the death-dealing instrument from him, 
when it was discharged, and if the aim had been a few inches higher, 
some pen besides mine must have written the history of this valley. 

As it was, Mrs. Demarie had me on my feet again and attending to my 
business in six weeks, but. my family being in Illinois, it seemed a very 
long, weary time. It was about this time that a^party of Sioux warriors 
came up into this neighborhood, and after skulking around back of 
Frenchtown awhile, succeeded in killing old Jack, a superannuated In- 
dian, who lived mostly in the Demarie family, and was very much es- 
teemed. For a while the little community was in a state of perfect ter- 
ror, but the cowardly perpetrators were as much alarmed as the others, 
for they fled so precipitately that they slipped the halters from the heads 
of their ponies where they fastened them, and I saw several that had 
been gathered by white persons. Another party of Chippewas were sur- 
prised and shot near Dunnville, the same year, Init in the summer of '57 
the Chippewas made two Sioux braves bite the dust near the same local- 
ity, their heads were cut oif and set on poles, their faces "ghastly grin- 
ning'' by the road, where it crosses Rock Run, in the town of Wheaton. 
Some time in the spring of this year an unfortunate homicide took place 
in Frenchtown, which created a good deal of excitement and considera- 
tion for the oflFenders William ^yylie enlisted in the same New York 
regiment with Fred Bussy, was in every battk from the siege of Vera 
Cruz to the surrender of the city of Mexico, a brave soldier and a great 
favorite with his comrades wherever he was ; he came on this river in 
1849, and some years after married a Miss Warner, to whom he appeared 
to be very much attached, and very jealous of other men's attentions to 
her. One evening, as she was passing near a saloon, some fellow in liquor 
accosted her in terms deemed too familiar, and having heard her state- 
ment, Wylie the next morning sought the ofi"ender, and at one blow with 
a billet of wood crushed the skull of his victim, causing death in a few 
hours. Wylie surrendered himself to the authorities, was duly presented 
to the grand jury at the next ensuing term of the Circuit Court, but 
that conscientious body refused to find sufficient cause to indict him, and 
the ermined brow of Judge Fuller grew black with righteous indignation 
at the announcement, and calling this august branch of his court before- 
him, gave them such a reprimand as they, if living,* feel tingling their 
ears yet. An examination of the case was subsequently had before a 
justice of the peace and the ofi^ender bound over, but on some pretext a 
habeas corpus was issued by Judge Mead, of Eau Claire, who released. 



76 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

the bonds, so that W3'lie was now free, and he soon took himself to parts 
unknown. But by what right this astute Judge issued such a writ is a 
question for "men eminent in the law," as the author of Waverly says. 

On the 30th of April, 1808, Andrew Seitz was murdered by Charles 
J^ether, two Germans who occupied a room over the Receiver's office, on 
Eau Cluire street. A dispute about a small sum of money, while both 
were in liquor, led to the fatal deed ; the offender being armed with a 
dirk-knife, inflicted a fatal stab in the left side of the lower part of the 
abdomen. At the June term of the Circuit Court following, Hethcr was 
indicted and tried, but the jury disagreeing he was convicted of man- 
slaughter in the third degree at the next term. He was sentenced by Judge 
S. S. N. Fuller to four years and twenty days at hard labor in the peniten- 
tiary. Bartlett 6c Mulks for the State. A. Meggett for the prisoner. 
Eau Claire Free Press of Dec. 30, 1857. 

A member of the legal profession who had practiced in the courts con- 
vened in this valley since the organization of this district^ would un- 
doubtedly find data for much legal disquisition, and many laughable in- 
cidents might be told, and one occurs to me that may interest the readers, 
if not told in legal i>hraseology. It was while grand juries were in vogue 
in this State, and when the terms for Chippewa county were in January 
and July. It was the winter term, twenty-three grand jurors, good men 
and true, had answered to their names, had learned the history of juries 
from tho days of "Alfred" down, the vast conservative power and influ- 
ence of grand juries, from the learned judge, and heard his charge "to 
present no man through fear, favor, or affection," and sworn to present 
all who were guilty of such and such offences, including bribery and all 
and every attempt of men in official positions to receive bribes or com- 
pound felonies ; and having been properly locked up in a room, well 
guarded by a resolute executive functionary, they commenced their onerous 
deliberation, and then and there making inquest for the body and people 
of Chippewa county, ascertained that the District Attorney, the man 
whom the people in their collective wisdom had chosen to prosecute offend- 
ers and draw up indictments against those whose conduct was contrary 
to tlic peace and dignity of the State, was the man, the moral and crim- 
inal turpitude of whose offending made it incumbent on that illustrious 
body to present him to the court for illegally and feloniously accepting a 
bribe and compoumling felony, to the grea^ detriment of the people 
of the said county of Chippewa, and contrary to the peace and dignity 
of the State. His Honor was therefore requested to send a good lawyer 
to that well-guarded room, to embudy the result of their investigations 



CHIPPEWA YALLBY HISTORY. 77 

as disclosed by the evidence into an indictment, charging him with heinous 
crimes and misdemeanors, that he might answer before the law he had 
sworn to help execute, in that he had received certain sums of money 
amounting to one hundred and fifty dollars, from a certain German ar- 
rested for assault with intent to kill, held to bail before a justice's court, 
and released through the interposition of this District Attorney, on the 
payment of the sum aforesaid to himself and for his personal benefit. 
Such were the facts disclosed by the evidence before this jury, as stated 
by their foreman, when called before his Honor to explain the cause of 
so strange a request ; the party implicated being present, who, of all the 
members of that bar, most shared his Honor's confidence. Here was a 
dilemma ; no member of the legal profession in that court could be pre- 
vailed on to draw such an indictment, but how was he to satisfy that 
grand jury. He was equal to the occasion, however ; and after the con- 
fusion of the moment had passed, delivered himself of the following per- 
oration : "Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, we read in the Bible, 'Blessed 
are the peacemakers. ' This man is a peacemaker ; he made peace be- 
tween the injured man and the wrong-doer by paying him fifty dollars 
out of the one hundred and fifty, and now they are good friends, and if 
for mediatorial services and influence he received the hundred, it is all 
right. The officer will attend you to your room. Sheriff, adjourn the 
court." 

The mill property at the Falls continued in the hands of a receiver 
until 1862, leased to different parties, the last being Henry Coleman, a 
practical mill man, who had been employed as foreman under the old 
regime, and who was assisted by the new firm of Pound & Halbert, who 
this year bought the entire property, mill, lots, pine land, and personal 
property. This firm commenced business at a very opportune moment, 
when property was low, and the advance caused by the war and a better 
currency, with favorable seasons and a close attention to business, enabled 
them to rise at once to an enviable position in the business community . 

SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES. 

The first district school organized in Chippewa county under legal pro- 
vision was in the town of La Fayette, In the fall of 1855, and Miss Irene 
Drake has the honor of teaching the first school. In the succeeding win- 
ter, '55-6, a public school house had been commenced but remained un- 
finished, and the school was opened in a private house. The school sys- 
tem in this State has been revised and improved since that time, and its 
provisions better nnderstood by the people. But, at that [time and in 
that little district, the people were so tenacious or their ancient customs 



78 CHIPPEWA VALLEV HISTORY. 

and old-time notions, that the proposition to levy a tax to buill a school- 
house was strenuouslj' opposed, notwithstanding there was a lar^re amount 
of non-resident lands on which the assessment would fall. "^Vhere we 
came from," said these patriotic citizens, '-the house was alwa\.s built by 
private contribution," but school-districts got bravely over tho.-^e old-fogy 
ideas, as many a speculator owning wild lands th'-'.o can testify. 

The first house erected in the village of Chippewa Falls f..r district 
purposes was built in 1857 ; was quite a spacious building, and frequently 
occupied for religious services by various denominations too feeble to have 
a house of their own. 

The Presbpterian church was completed in 1857, and the Rev. Bradley 
Phillips invited to become its pastor. 

The Catholic church was commenced the same year, and, after a hard 
struggle and many delays, completed in 1859, since which time its pulpit 
has been well sustained. 



CHAPTER XIX 

The act for the organization of Eau Claire county provided that an 
election for county officers should be held on the last Tuesday in Decem- 
ber, 1856, and that the town board of the town of Eau Claire should 
constitute tlie county board until the next annual election. C. M. Seley. 
Chairman ; E. W. Robbins and M. A. Page, Supervisors. Adin Ran- 
dall was chosen Treasurer; C "P. Babcock, Clerk of the Board ; C. H, 
Howard, Register of Deeds. Political conditions had but little do with 
the selection of candidates, although in most instances two candidates 
were found for most of the offices. Mr. Olin was elected Clerk of the 
Court without opposition ; but the contest between R. F. Wilson and 
Charley Howard, for Register of Deeds, was quite exciting. 

The most important accession to the settlement of Eau Claire, this 
year, 1S5G, was undoubtedly Daniel Shaw ; having bought extensive 
tracts of pine land on the Chippewa and its affluents, his next move was 
to make it available, by manufacturing the pine into lumber. The se- 
lection of a suitable point at which to erect mills and establish the seat of 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY UISTORY. 79 

his business rec^uired the most careful consideration and mature judg- 
ment. 

As the choice of any site on the main river involved complications in 
regard to its navigation, boomage, the storage of logs, etc., strong in- 
ducements were held out by the Falls company, just then erecting a new 
and expensive dam, and making other costly improvements, to invest at 
that point, but the evidence of previous losses by devastating freshets, 
was too apparent at that point to aflford any encouragement to the capi- 
talist or manufacturer. He pronounced the lower Dalles then as now 
the only point on the river where a reservoir of safe and sufficient ca- 
pacity to store all the logs on the stream could ever be established, but 
the impediments to overcome were too great. 

Half Moon lake aflforded a perfectly safe place for a certain amount of 
logs, if there was any possible way to get them in there ; to excavate a 
race or canal from the river to the lake and establish a sheer-boom at a 
suitable point above, to direct the logs through, seemed a practical opera- 
tion but too great an undertaking for his means single-handed, but by 
associating his with the means of others desirous of establishing a like 
business, he hoped to succeed. Ingram & Kennedy, Smith & Ball, Adin 
Randall, and some others were parties to this association ; a charter for 
a boom was obtained from the legislature, and the work of building, 
opening the canai,- and getting logs up the river to stock the mills, were 
all pressed forward with hopeful energy. .ni'.^'J ,i 

But if Mr. Shaw or any of his associates could have just had a glimpse 
of the future that was before them, their hard struggles against fearful 
floods, destructive fires, the hopeless and crushing effect of the utter 
prostration of all business interests throughout the West for several suc- 
ceeding years, and the near approach to bankruptcy to which some — per- 
haps all — of those firms must come before the dawn of a brighter day 
should inspire hope, it is very probable that they would have shrunk 
from the undertaking, and that the "West Side" would to this day have 
continued to be a region of scrub oaks and wilderness waste. 

For, good reader, you who own lots and fine houses on that side, and 
you merchants who, by the labor and industry of others, are getting rich, 
and you lawyers who, by darkening counsel, involve your neighbors in 
legal difficulties that you may profit by their silly whims, and you well- 
to-do mechanics and laboring men, many — most of whom sit under ' 'your 
own vine and fig-tree," what would it all be worth if it were not for 
those mills and booms that have cost so much energy and struggle ? 



80 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

SCHOOLS, RELIGION, SOCIETY. 

Corresponding to the enterprise and indomitable energy in business af- 
fairs displayed by the early settlers of Eau Claire, was their zeal in the 
cause of education and the advancement of religion, and it is safe to say 
that a larger per cent, of cultured minds and well-educated people were 
found amongst the early settlers of this county than usually falls to the 
lot of new Western settlements. 

The first school-house erected in the county was on the Sparta road, 
three miles from Eau Claire, in what was known as the Olin and Bebee 
neighborhood, in the fall of '57, but during the succeeding winter a house 
was erected and a school opened in the village of Eau Claire, in what 
is now the Second ward ; the building is now known as the Universalist 
church. 

The M. E. Church, ever mindful of the educational and religious in- 
terests in remote districts, assisted by local enterprise and some eastern 
educational fund, commenced, in 1857, the erection in West Eau Claire 
of a school building known as the Methodist Institute, which was for 
several years conducted with much ability, and in the feeble condition of 
the early district schools, was of great benefit to many young person* 
desirous of advancing themselves in studies not taught in the then-exist- 
ing district schools, but since the establishment of graded schools on both 
sides of the river, being free to all and conducted with such marked abil- 
ity, the Institute has languished and bids fair to become entirely useless. 

During the summer of 1856, Mr. J. F. Stone erected a saw and grist 
mill on Bridge creek, at a point where the village of Augusta now stands, 
and the year following Sanford Bills and others laid out the village of 
that name. 

The valley of Bridge creek exhibits some remarkable topograpical fca- 
tures. The course of the stream is southeast to northwest, and from its 
source to its confluence with the Eau Claire river describes the boundary 
between two sections of country diflfering in a marked degree from each 
other in soil and character. Along its southwest bank for almost its en- 
tire length, extends a fine, rich prairie, broken here and there by gentle 
elevations, but uniformly fertile, the soil being everywhere a rich clay 
loam, coming clear down to, and even into, the bends of the creek ; but 
just across the rippling stream, and lo ! how changed the soil and its 
productions ; very little timber grew naturally on the former side — only 
luxuriant grass — while on the latter, a towering pine forest stood proud- 
ly out to view, stretching along for miles in bold contrast to the flower- 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 81 

ing plain on the opposite side. Here was marked in bold relief the line 
between that vast prairie and nearly timberless region extending a thou- 
sand miles to the Black Hills of Colorado, and the great timbered reo-ion 
stretching unbroken away to the great lakes, and here to-day in the trade 
and traffic of the village of Augusta, we see the meeting of two great 
industries, equally dependent on and building up each other — the forest 
and the field kissing each other across this gentle stream, and crowning 
with plenty and comfort the labors of the farmer, the lumberman, and 
the merchant. And here, in this romantic spot, has grown up the beau- 
tiful village of Augusta ; its proud temple of learning presided over by 
the talented young educator, Thomas Williams ; its numerous churches, 
its comfortable dwellings, its sumptuous hotels, all lying in peaceful plen- 
ty, where, many years less back than this narration dates, the wild deer 
and wolf had their covert, and the red man of the forest had undisputed 
sway. But like all other Western towns and villages, the way to wealth; 
and comfort has been through intense hardships, toil, and the most un- 
tiring perseverance, as a perusal of the following terse and expressive ex- 
tract from the Augusta number of Mrs. French's American Sketch Book, 
pages 63 to 67, under the head "Nationality of the Valley," will inform 
us : 

"The first settlers were New York and New England peojjle, with an 
occasional foreigner, who at that early date had to migrate over new and 
almost unsettled country, on long journeys in covered wagons, stopping, 
when night overtook them, by some spring by the mountain side, or some 
babbling brook that would afford water for themselves and their cattle 
and horses, being weeks, and even months, on the journey. They were, 
with few exceptions, very poor, bringing with them barely enough to 
feed and clothe themselves until the first cabin could be built and the 
first crop gathered in. Industry and economy have repaid most of those 
old pioneers with beautiful homes, and surrounded them with nearly all 
the luxuries and comforts of the East. They were possessed with the de- 
termination that others had thus procured homes before thera, and what 
others could do, they could and would do also ; and they did do, as this 
narrative will show before completed. 

One example might illustrate the many hardships that were endured by 
the first to open up this beautiful country. One, whose name I will not 
mention, came from Maine to seek a home in the then far west, and up- 
on striking this county, made himself a claim in the shape of a pre-emp- 
tion, and commenced improvements with nothing but his hands with 
which to labor. Every furrow broken had to be worked for, he giving 



82 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

hand labor to some neighbor that would exchange with him. After the 
land was broken it became necessary to build a fence, and nails had to 
be got without team or wagon. Well, what did he do but start on foot 
to what is now the commercial center of Eau Claire county, purchased a 
kesr of nails, and carried them home, a distance of eighteen miles — mak- 
ing thirty-six miles of travel in the same day. Who is there coming 
now-a-days that is able to do this? Very few. I desire to follow this 
circumstance a little farther, to show what has been done. Another 
trial came. A hundred and sixty acres of land had to be paid for at a 
certain time, Could this be done ? Only one way there was, and that 
was this : "My old father," thought ho, '-is in the East, and he can, by 
scraping together the earnings of a lifetime, help me out, and I will take 
care that he has a home in his old age." The message was sent back to 
his early home, and shortly after the much-needed money was received, 
the land paid for, taking, perhaps, all the old State-of-Mainer had accu- 
mulated through earlier life, thereby securing a home for both father and 
son. We will pass a few years and take another look at this western farm 
and family to-day. By calling at a splendid white house, surrounded by 
fruit trees, not nine miles from Augusta, you will find the same father 
and son, and the son's wife and family, enjoying health, wealth, and all 
the luxuries to be found in the West. He has all the wealth necessary 
to make him happy, and is carrying out that pledge to the gray-headed 
father, to the perfect satisfaction of all concerned. 

The above is only an illustration of the trials and achievements of those 
who came in early times. All had their trials and hardships : none es- 
caped. 

In later years, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Scotland, and 
nearly all nationalities have contributed to help increase the population 
and improvements of our valley and country, these people being in the 
county a majority, and through our valley about half the population at 
the present time," 



CHAPTER XX. 

A perusal of the foregoing chapters, and especially the earlier ones, 
has exhibited to the reader the incipient struggles and maturer develop- 



CHIPPEWA VALLliT UISTORY. 83 

meat of a community of lumbermen, whose principal business has been 
to build and manage saw-mills, and to conduct the manufacture of lum- 
hev. 

A short account of saw-mills in general, and the progress of improve- 
ments in this branch of manufacturing industry, will not, therefore, be 
inappropriate. 

To any one who has witnessed a first-class modern saw-mill in opera- 
tion, having all the late inventions and improvements, and the wonderful 
facility, precision, and dispatch with which a rough log is converted into 
smooth, square-edged boards, the entire motive power of which is found 
in the restless energy of water, or by its conversion into steam through 
the application of heat, the statement may appear almost incredible when 
I say that three hundred years ago the saw-mill, driven by either 
water or steam, was utterly unknown, and when we consider their great 
utility, and the prominent part they now perform in supplying the wants 
of men, we are wont to ask. How did people live without saw-mills ? 
How did nations fit out vast fleets, and make all the lumber required, by 
hand ? Where and how was all the lumber manufactured that Spain put 
into the Invincible Armada? 

Koman history speaks of almost every branch of industry, but it is 
silent as to the production of the lumber that composed the vast fleets 
of the Scipios, of Pompey and Julius Caesar, of Mark Antony and Au- 
gustus. 

The sacred historians of an earlier day, however, have told us that 
eighty thousand men were employed to hew out the timbers and boards 
for Solomon's temple, and for seven years they were thus employed. 
What a vast quantity of fir and cedar timber must have been wasted by 
those clumsy operatives, and how much time and labor could have been 
saved if some enterprising Yankee had been there to dam up one of 
the upper branches of the modern Nehrel Kasumyeh, put in a LefFel 
double-turbine water-wheel, or lay down a track and run up a forty-horse 
power steam-engine to the foot of Mount Lebanon, and with a double- 
rotary saw cut out all the boards and timbers in a week that several such 
houses required to ceil all their courts, and set up the posts and doors 
thereof Some kind of saws were most likely used, even at this early 
day, as David laid the Ammonites under saws and harrows of iron, and 
the Greek historians some five hundred years later speak of saws set iu 
frames across which logs of wood were moved back and forth until boards 
were made therefrom. Herod, too, rebuilt the Temple of God in less than 
half the time consumed by Solomon, and with less than a tenth of the 



84 CHIPPE"WA VALLEY HISTORY. 

force, and in a style, finish, grandeur, and architectural beauty far sur- 
passing Solomon's. But his supply of lumber was mainly from the same- 
forest, Mount Lebanon. We must infer, therefore, that great improve- 
ments had been attained in the manufacture of all wood materials re- 
quired in building at this time. 

Saws were the invention of a very early, perhaps of a prehistoric, 
period, and their use became largely identified with the civilization of 
the race, and to us it seems surprising that an instrument so easily adapt- 
ed to machinery, propelled by wind or water, should be so slow in finding 
its way to public favor. But like many other labor-saving inventions, 
saw-mills incurred the most furious opposition from the laboring classes; 
in Germany, on the Rhine and Scheldt, where both wind and water were 
successfully employed to drive them, and in England, wher6 a mob 
repeatedly destroyed every one that capital and enterprise erected, for 
more than a hundred years after its adoption in the American colonies. 
The first saw-mill erected in Massachusetts was in 1633, thirteen years 
after the landing of the May Flower. The same year a wind saw-mill 
was erected in New Amsterdam, N. Y. This latter mill was leased for 
one year, the rent of which was five hundred feet of boards, half pine- 
and half oak, so it could not have amounted to much. Judge Mitchell, 
of Iowa, once defined tyranny as "too much law," which if we accept as 
true, will certainly denominate the early laws of the colony of Massa- 
chusetts Bay as outrageously tyrannical, for it was enacted by that body 
of sages that "If any of the towns people shall bring any logs or tim- 
ber to the mill to be sawed into boards or plank, the owners of the mill 
shall saw it before sawing any for themselves, and shall be entitled to re- 
tain one-half the lumber for their labor, and if any man shall wish to buy 
any lumber, the mill owner or owners shall sell him as much as he may 
desire, for the country pay, at 2s- 6d. per 100 feet." [Mass. Hist'l 
Col., Vol. I]. What would our mill men think of such laws now? 

The forests of the Uniled States aflforded not only a bountiful supply 
of building materials, but gave ample scope to inventive genius in im- 
proving the machinery for, and the methods of, its manufacture. 

Before the application of steam power in propelling saw-mills, water 
power mills were almost exclusively used in America to make sawed lum- 
ber, and two principal elements entered into their construction, namely, 
the "wheel and saw." 

The ancients seem to have been slow to apprehend the advantages of 
water as a motive power, and the invention of the best wheels, those that 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 85 

'derive the greatest power from a given quantity of water, is of very re- 
cent date. 

Less than fifty years ago, somebody advanced the idea that water, as 
it escaped through some opening in a flume where it was pent up, 
pressed, or "kicked," against the sides of the opening with the same 
force that it fell on the surface below, and a treatise on Natural Philoso- 
phy, of that time, has a diagram representing the principle by a hollow 
shaft with arms at the foot, also hollow ; the whole filled with water, and 
issuing from extreme ends on opposite sides through small apertures ; the 
"kick," or re-action, of the water on freeing itself from the tube, sets 
the upright shaft in motion. The principle once established, it was not 
long before scientific and practical men applied it under several different 
names, as "ro-action," "center-vent," "double re-action," wheel, etc., 
all combining under various modifications the principle, that by its re- 
action against the surface from whence it issues, water set those surfaces 
in motion, and, by long and patient experimenting, inventors have prob- 
ably ascertained precisely what amount of surface, and the best form or 
imould of surface, is required so that the greatest force may be exerted 
by the water in its passage through the vents, and several models have 
been patented, as the "Steam's wheel," the "Rose wheel," and the 
■"Leffel double-turbine wheel." 

The old fashioned wheels were of two kinds, overshot and undershot, 
but combining the same principle in the application of the water's pro- 
pelling force. The former were generally used where a great head of 
water could be obtained and the supply limited ; and the latter, where 
rapid motion must be attained at the expense of water in larger volume. 

These last named wheels were almost exclusively in use in all the mills 
on the Chippewa j^untll about the year 1850, when in one after an- 
other, as they were rebuilt or remodeled, the "Steam's," "Rose," or 
"turbine" wheels have taken their place. 

Many of my readers can remember when saw-mills were all built after 
one pattern, a single upright saw set in a heavy sash or frame, the whole 
driven up and down by a flutter wheel twenty-flve feet long, with a pon- 
derous crank attached to a heavy pitman, at one end of which motion 
was given to the saw direct, and consequently the diameter of the wheel 
was so small as to secure rapid motion. 

One of the drawbacks in using these wheels was their utter worthloss- 
ness in case of backwater, as no amount of "head" or fall would overcome 
the resistance offered by their immersion in dead water, while the re-ac- 



SG CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

tion wheels work very well if there is sufficient head, though buried deep 
under water. 

Another objection to the old wheels was that only a large volume and 
good head of water were equal to driving a gang of saws, while a mod- 
erate head with a Steam's or turbine wheel will easily drive a double 
gang. 

Well, good-bye to the flutter wheels. Ye did good service, and many 
a tired sawyer wishes for the return of the good old days when he took 
a good nap while ye were making a run ! With the introduction of the 
new and more powerful wheels came the rotary saw, one of which for 
slabbing and fitting logs for a gang, will perform the work of half a doz- 
en muleys, and with the aid of a Tarrant's log-turner and other improve- 
ments for handling logs and lumber, edging, butting, and forwarding to 
the raft shed, a vast amount of lumber is manufactured in a single day 
at some of the largest establishments in this valley, and no more grati- 
fying sight can be presented to visitors who come among us than to 
take them to one of our first-class saw-mills, where from fifty to a hun- 
dred thousand feet of boards, plank, joists, scantling, and square timber 
are manufactured, sorted, and rafted in ten hours. And so well accus- 
tomed are the men em^iloyed in the different parts of the work, and with 
such precision does each perform the part allotted to him, that he seems 
a part of the machinery upon which he attends. But for this accuracy 
and strict adherence of each and every one to the duty assigned hira, ac- 
cidents would constantly occur. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

INVENTIONS. 

During the war of the rebellion, the inventive genius of the whole 
nation was directed to improvements in the manufacture of arms, because 
war was the business of the people — engrossing their thoughts and ab- 
sorbing their means and energies, and whether the old saw that "necessity 
is the mother of invention," is true or not, it is a well-established fact 
that many of the most useful inventions, those that confer the greatest 
benefits, have grown out of the peculiar wants and conditions of man : 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. S7 

being especially adapted to the pursuits and industrial development of 
the diflPerent races of men in the successive ages of the world. What 
but the strange, wild, ever-moving life of our American Indians, whos3 
only highways were the rivers, could have led such unskillful, ignorant 
people — unskilled in the arts and manufacture of almost every useful 
thing — to construct so delicate, ingenious, and useful a thing as the bark 
canoe, requiring a degree of mechanical skill that it would be hard for 
our artisans to imitate, a craft so light a man can carry it anywhere, and 
yet so capacious and durable that whole families, with their effects, take 
passage in one of them? And who supposes that Whitney, the inventor 
of the cotton-gin, had he continued to live among his native New England 
hills, would have lost a moment's sleep or an hour's time, in working out 
the details of that intricate, but wonderfully useful, machine? But the 
enormous demand for fine cotton fabrics, and the fact just then ascer- 
tained that the soil and climate of the Southern States wer^a adapted to 
the production of the finest fiber of cotton, stimulated a poor New En- 
gland mechanic, who had gone down there with his tc ols and carpet-bag, 
to give to those arrogant Southrons an invention that at cnce conferred 
upon those States a commanding position in the commercial affairs of the 
world. The plow, too, that through all ages and in all countries, was 
little more than unshapely pieces of wood sharpened, and sometimes 
pointed with iron, was found utterly inadequate to the demands of our 
Western soils, and in 18.36 began to claim the attention of practical, 
scientific men, for the first time in the world's history, and impelled by 
the necessity which the peculiar but fertile soil of the Western prairies 
involved, that long neglected but indispensable implement of husbandry 
soon underwent radical improvements, and became "a thing of beauty;" 
its polished, case-hardened, steel mould-board cleaving and flopping over 
the most sticky prairie loam to be found with as much ease as other plows 
would scathe a sand-bank. How much of the success and material pros- 
perity of the West has been achieved by improvements in this one im- 
plement, we shall never realize, but in no other country in the world' not 
even in practical, inventive New England, can be found such perfect 
plows as have grown out of the demands of the great West. It is nat- 
ural, therefore, to expect that the inventive talent of this valley should 
be directed to overcojming the natural obstacles in the way of, or in fa- 
cilitating, the manufacture and transportation of lumber. 

Every science employs certain technical terms or phrases peculiar to 
itself, and every branch of industry makes use of names and words which 
belong exclusively to that art, many of which require explanation in or- 



88 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

der to be understood by the general reader. A few iustancos of this 
kind will perhaps occur in speaking of our inventions, and their appro- 
priation to the business of this valley. 

Every person who has ascended the Mississippi, or any other shallow, 
sandy river, in low water, on a steaml)oat, and felt the shock as she ran 
on a sand-bar, must have some idea of the shape or form of the bar, 
which, in almost every instance, is a continually moving mass of sand 
stretching oblii:|uely across the river, with a bold, bluif bank and deep 
■water on the lower side, with a thin sheet of uneven depth spread out 
over the long, upper slope, everywhere getting shallower, until it reaches 
the very brink, where a perceptible fall is noticed, and the current slack- 
ened by its fall into deeper water, and any one who has observed the 
course of the boat as she feels her way along, endeavoring to find out 
where the channel is, has noticed that she ran along on the under side of 
the bluflF bar, perhaps nearly across the river, the channel having changed 
to the opposite side in that short distance. Now, a raft floating down" 
the river, guided with long sweeping oars, needs to be kept in the same 
serpentine channel, because the steamboat has taken the deepest water 
there is, and the only way it can be made to float over the next bar is to 
keep it up close under the bar above, until the draught of water will take 
it through, which is frequently a difficult task to perform, requiring the 
maturest judgment, skillful piloting, and rapid handling of the raft. 

The reader will bear in mind that there is a shallow draft of water prob- 
ably, over the whole length of this oblique sand-bar, and a constant ten- 
dency of the raft to drift down with the current on to the bar below, al- 
though it may be very thin, and whatever appliances can be brought to 
bear upon the raft to check its downward force, must be an important 
auxiliary in guiding the raft ; and for many years the raftsmen on this 
river felt the need of some such mechanical agency, which was at length 
found in the very simple, but immensely serviceable, contrivance called 
the "snatch pole." Who was its inventor, or precisely where (on what 
river) it was first used, I have not been able to ascertain, but its great 
value to the lumbermen on tliis river induces me to honor it with a minute 
description, as, by its aid in low water, fifty per cent, is saved in running 
lumber to the Mississippi. 

The method, or art, of rafting lumber on the Chippewa is very mucli 
like that pursued on the Delaware, Susquehanna. Alleghany, and Ohio 
rivers. Cribs sixteen by thirty-two feet, instead of the old-style plat- 
form, is now the invariable shape of the first compact form of raft, into 
which the lumber is jlacel and firmly fastened by ironwood "grub-pins" 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 89 

laserted through two-inch plank, those on the under side, or bottom, of 
the crib being called "runners," and those on the top "binders." The 
grub-pins are turned in a lathe, with the head on one end, which is neat- 
ly fitted into the under side of the lower plank, or runner, so as to 
make a smooth surface.. These cribs are formed on ways, with rollers on 
which they rest, and when the crib is of the desired thickness — twelve to 
twenty courses, according to the stage of water — a strong lever, called a 
"witch," having a heavy iron clamp on one end, is placed over the end 
of each grub-pin, with a fulcrum bearing on the binder, by which means 
the grub-pin is dravvn upward, thereby causing the runner and binder to 
be drawn together with great force, and binding the lumber between 
tightly together, when the grub-pin is securely wedged, and ths crib is 
finished. The fastening which holds it to the ways is then removed, and 
away glides the crib into the water. Seven of these cribs constitute a 
string, and four of these strings form a Chippewa raft. The grub-pins 
are left standing, extend a foot or more above the binder, and by their 
aid the cribs and strings are united and bound together. By their aid 
"snubbing works" are erected on the raft by which it is checked and 
landed. It is, too, by means of these pins that the snatch-pole and line 
are operated to check the headway, and also in guiding the raft. This 
implement is about sixteen feet long and six inches in diameter at the thick- 
est part, which is about three feet from the lower end. Upon the lower 
end a strong steel-pointed socket is fastened, and a band of iron, to which 
a strong ring is fastened, being driven down to within three feet from the 
end from which it tapers gradually to the upper end. A line called the 
"snatch line" is fastened to the ring, and lies coiled up near the stern of 
the raft, and as it approaches one of these intricate passages before de- 
scribed, and before the stern has passed the first-named bar, one of the 
oarsmen seizes the snatch-pole and, bounding into the water, hastens 
along the bar, in the direction desired to hold the raft, and ))y rapid 
movement thrusts the heavy steel point of the pole into the sand, holding 
firmly the other end at an angle of forty-five degrees, while the pilot, 
quick 'as thought, has the rope coiled around first one grub-pin and then 
another, as the raft passes on, continually checking its downward force, 
so that by the time the bar is passed the raft lies nearly still, under the 
bar. The man returns to the raft with the snatch-pole, and it is easily 
guided with the oars to the precise channel over the bar below, although 
involving the necessity of winding along a serpentine route that, without 
the aid of the snatch-pole, could not have been made, and the raft must 
have drifted hopelessly upon the bar, where the cribs must be separated 



90 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

and taken, at great expense, singly over or around, and down to some 
convenient place to couple up again. Sand-bars are the bane of naviga- 
tion, either for boats or rafts, on all the Wisconsin tributaries to the 
Mississippi, and the bed of the Chippewa, for fifty miles from its mouth, 
is a constantly ever-changing mass of sand, bewildering the pilots and ut- 
terly defying all attempts at permanent improvement in its navigation, 
as several vast sand-banks slope down to the river at different points, and 
every high rise of water displaces immense quantities of sand from these 
banks, which floats along in restless masses, blocking up all the old chan- 
nels, and mocking all human efforts to improve the river or make it a 
reliable and cheap thoroughfare for the navigation of boats or rafts. And 
right here 1 wish to remark that as the Wisconsin river, all the way from 
Kilbourn City to its mouth, is liable to the same obstructions and imped- 
iments as the Chippewa, no positive and permanent improvement of that 
stream will ever be attained by any means yet proposed, and that nothing 
short of a canal the entire distance will ever open the long desired and much 
talked of water communication between the Mississippi and the lakes by 
that route. And every dollar appropriated by Congress proposing any- 
thing short of a canal from Portage City down, is so much money thrown 
away. 



CHAPTER XXII 

INVENTIONS CONTINUED. 

In the preceding chapters of this work, reference has frequently been 
made to booms, and presuming that most of my readers understand the 
meaning of the term, as used here in contradistinction to its nautical defi- 
nition, as the main-, jib-, and studding-sail-boom, no explanation has 
been deemed necessary in regard to its signification ; but the diff'erent 
methods of construction, using and fastening, together with improvements 
added by inventors in the structure and arrangement of certain kinds of 
booms, or booms for certain localities, as also a succinct account of a 
patent obtained for the same, will constitute the principal topics of this 
chapter. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 93f 

In construction, the booms on this river are of two kinds, stiff and 
thorough-shot, and are adapted to two principal purposes, and designated 
as jam-boom and shear-boom. The former, as its name indicates, is a 
fixed obstruction placed in the river, or a cross some part or channel of 
the river, so as to effectually stop the logs, and retain them there until 
wanted for the mill, or to form into rafts, and is usually what is called a 
thorough-shot boom, and is formed of very strong timbers, coupled at the 
ends with six-inch bolts, or thorough-shots, the ends of two short timbers 
uniting with one long one between them ; they are usually hewn on two 
sides, and the sections thus constructed are fastened to piers planted in 
the bed of the river at suitable distances to afford support, either by 
driving piles, if the bottom is sand or gravel, or, if rock, by filling cribs 
with immense piles of stones ; ponderous chains being used for that pur- 
pose. Many such piers are erected at various points on this river, 
extending down from the foot of some island, so as to increase the storage 
capacity of a boom to which the island affords the starting point. 

But the boom that guides or " shears" the logs out of the main channel 
of the river into those side receptacles, is a thing of very different con- 
struction, and to so construct and arrange a boom of this kind in a navi- 
gable river, where steamboats and rafts are frequently passing, that no 
delay or interruption shall occur, and at the same time direct all the logs 
floating in the swollen river, out of the rapid current into the side boom, 
has taxed the ingenuity and the resources of some of the first inventors 
of the age, and best business men of the Northwest. It will readily be 
supposed that such a boom must present a straight, smooth surface to the 
logs that float against it ; that very strong supports of some kind must 
sustain it at different points againsl the powerful current, or it would 
trail with it ; that it must be stiff, and of great strength ; and, finally, 
that it must be flat, and wide enough for men to walk and work upon, to 
facilitate the forwarding of the logs, lest they accumulate by the pressure 
of the current. It must also be apparent to the reader that such a boom, 
or at least the lower portion, must have some contrivance by which it can 
be swung, or closed and opened readily ; and this was the great difficulty, 
the grand problem to be solved — the opening and shutting of the gate so 
rapidly and securely that no detention should be caused to boats or rafts, 
and yet save all the logs. Long and sorely was this difficulty felt by 
those mill men on this river, who erected steam mills and side booms or 
reservoirs for logs below the Falls, with a view to shear their logs into 
such receptacles, before any successful process was presented by which it 
could be overcome. But genius and persistent effort have accomplished 



92 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

the der^ircd end, and it will be the object of this chapter to set forth the 
wonderful invention to which it is due. It was not a new want, for on 
many other rivers it has been found desirable to arrest logs floating oa 
their surface, and shear them into places of safety ; and great losses had 
been experienced on the Mississippi river and other streams for want of 
such a gate. It has been previously stated that Daniel Shaw, in 1856, 
selected Half Moon Lake as a safe reservoir for logs ; that he and other • 
parties associated connected the lake with the Chippewa river by a canal, 
and established a shear-boom to guide their logs into said lake through 
the canal ; but the manner in which this undertaking was first attempted 
was far from satisfactory. At a projecting point of rocks about one hun- 
dred rods above the canal, on the opposite bank of the river, a stiff boom, 
formed by fastening together three or more pieces of heavy square timber 
in consecutive lengths, was made fast to the rock and extended nearly 
down to the canal, where piers and sorting works were erected to facilitate 
the separation from theirs of such logs as were required to pass on. 
Chains attached to anchors supported this boom at short intervals, and at 
the lower end a windlass and chain forced it up so near to the shore where 
this artificial channel was opened as to guide most of the logs therein ; but 
great difficulty attended the opening and closing of this swing gate by such 
an apparatus, to pass rafts and steamboats, and many logs went by before 
it could be closed by such clumsy machinery ; moreover, when the water 
was high and logs running plentifully, the anchor chains were found insuf- 
ficient and the windlass powerless to force the boom up against the strong 
current, so as to switch them out of the channel into the safe receptacle 
provided for them. 

Adin Randall, one of the company, contracted with the association to 
perform the labor and secure all the logs for a consideration, and for two 
years struggled hard to comply with his agreement ; but owing to the 
inefficiency of his machinery and arrangements, many logs were lost, and 
Half Moon Lake, as a depository for logs, bade fair to become a failure, 
owing to the difficulty of getting them in there. 

But in 1859 a contract was made with James Allen and Levi W. 
Pond, in which tho.«e gentlemen bound themselves to perform what Mr. 
Eandall had failed in a measure to do ; care being taken, it seems, from 
the tenor of the agreement, to stipulate that the same machinery should 
be used, and by the same process as that employed by Mr. Randall. This 
contract was for a term of five years ; but these men were not only skill- 
ful and practical operators in such matters, but scientific inventors, and 
by long and careful experimenting were enabled to work out the details 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 93> 

of a boom moved and operated on very different principles, and to compel 
that very element against which they contended to serve them — a boom 
that would open and shut across the river independent of chains, anchors 
or windlasses, and without any external aid. 

Grand and seemingly inconceivable as the idea must appear to the 
reader, that pieces of timber fastened together so as to form a slender 
raft several hundred feet in length might float in the river, securely fas- 
tened at the up-stream end to the shore, and that it would swing by itself 
up stream, and stretch itself obliquely across the river, holding itself 
against the headlong torrent and crushing masses of floating logs and 
driftwood as if firmly anchored to a rock-bound shore ; yet the inventive 
genius of these poor, hard-working, but practical men not only conceived 
the thing, but reduced it to a positive demonsl ration. Mr. Pond informs 
me that, like many other inventions, the incipient idea was derived from 
a very commonplace circumstance ; that in operating the windlass it was 
found convenient to use a scow at the lower end, and placed on the lower 
side of the boom as at first arranged, and that at one time a heavy strain 
was brought to bear upon the end up stream, which forced the stern or 
lower end out from the boom at an angle of thirty degrees or more ; and 
by careful observation it was ascertained that the current set with such 
force against the side of the scow, held thus obliquely to it, in opposition 
to its force on the other side of the boom, as to very perceptibly move it 
up against the current. And right there was evolved the principle which 
only required development to produce a machine of immense value to the 
world ; and in 1862 Messrs. Pond and Allen actually applied this prin- 
ciple in the management of their boom, by attaching wings or rudders at 
intervale along the lower edge of the boom, in such a manner that they 
would lie close by its side when necessary to open it for rafts or boats to 
pass, or could be expanded by a rope attached to the other ends, and 
extending to the upper end of the boom, where a windlass was employed 
to force the rudders out against the current, which, reacting against tho 
pressure on the opposite side, held the boom and all the logs that came 
against it across this powerful current, and glanced or steered them with 
wonderful facility into the desired haven. 

An invention involving so many nice adjustments, which could only be 
made when the water was high and logs running, required much time to 
perfect all its arrangements, so as to adapt it to all the varied circum- 
stances and conditions of low water and flood ; and as there were only a 
few weeks or months in the year in which experiments could be made, and 
as all these were necessarily open to the public, other parties copied it, 



94 CUIPPEWA VALLKY HISTORY. 

-and commenced using it before it was so far completed in all its parts as 
to warrant application for a patent. "Want of means to pr -secute it also 
deterred Mr. Pond from obtaining a patent on his invention ; and when, 
with the aid of the Eau Claire Lumber company, such ajipHcation was 
made, with models all complete, so much time had elapsed that a special 
act of Congress was necessary to relieve the applicant from the disability 
of not having applied soon enough, as, by the patent law, prior use of the 
invention for more than two years by other parties rendered it liable to 
objection ; but, under the peculiar circumstances. Congress thought the 
two-year privilege enjoyed by all inventors ought in this instance to be 
enlarged, and, therefore, passed the act for Mr. Pond's relief. This, 
however, was in 1870, two years after the granting of the patent. 

The association owning the boom upon which these experiments were 
Kiade gave Mr. Pond and his associates two thousand dollars for the priv- 
ilege of using his invention at that point, and certified to its practical 
worth and utility, saying, " It has stood the test of the highest freshets. 
is easily and cheaply constructed," and recommending it to all who have 
occasion for such an invention. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE FOREST. 



Next to the fertility of its soil, the great West owes its development 
and prosperity to the forests abounding near the sources of the grand 
river by which it is drained, together with those on the tributaries of 
the Great Lakes, and very much of the soil of Wisconsin would be ut- 
terly worthless and incapable of sustaining even the sparsest population, 
where are flourishing villages, were it not for the advantages derived 
from the near presence of a vast forest of pine, hemlock, oak, maple, and 
other valuable timber, in the northern and northeastern portions of the 
State. And though reference has frequently been made to the business 
of cutting and manufacturing this timber into lumber, in these pages, it 
is believed that a more extended and detailed account of these operations, 
peculiarities of the people engaged therein, modes of life, methods of 
prosecuting the work, face of the country, etc., would constitute an in- 
teresting chapter in this work. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 95 

A line drawn from the northern extremity of Lake St. Croix to Kil- 
bourn City would describe the general course of the boundary between 
the prairie, or measurably timberless region, on the southwest, and the 
unbroken forest extending in the opposite direction to the great inland 
seas ; varied, however, by occasional projections "of timber into the 
meadows," as the big woods on the Eau Galla, and the peninsular of 
pine woods on Robinson's creek. As we ascend any of the streams cross- 
ing this line, the soil along their banks becomes sandy, the grass and oth- 
er vegetation stunted, black pine takes the place of oak timber, the beds 
of creeks and sloughs change from the sluggish, muddy appearance of 
the Western prairies to a clear, crystal sand or gravel, and the water a 
pure, limpid rivulet. These sandy plains are frequently of considerable 
extent, but, as before stated, partially covered with a certain kind of 
pine called "black Jack," are not the kind of soils on which valuable 
white or red "Norway" pine timber grows, but may be said to mark the 
boundary between the timbered and prairie regions of the Northwest. 
Bogs and abrupt, sandstone peaks and ridges are another indication of a 
characteristic change in the soil and its productions, but the soil best 
adapted to the growth of sound, white-pine timber is a damp, heavy, 
rocky clay. But the production of pine timber has not been solely de- 
pendent on the nature of the soil, although this is an essential element, 
but upon many concurrent circumstances ; for no tree grows in our for- 
ests that has so many enemies as the pine. Towering in its best estate 
high above all other timber, the fury of the winds plays high carnival 
with its stately forms. The lightning, too, seems to delight in driving 
its shafts down its tall, spire-like top, and shattering its trunk by that 
subtle fluid that mocks all human control. 

Many diseases fasten themselves upon this tree during the long cen- 
turies required for its maturity, and, like all other trees, suffers much 
from being too much crowded together, and as the feeble ones die out and 
fall against their fellows, many injuries are inflicted, causing decay that 
extends to the whole tree, sometimes affecting the "heart" and eating out 
the interior, year after year, as successive layers or grains are formed on 
the outside. Something in the soil, also, seems to favor this center rot, 
or, as the choppers say, cause the tree to be "hollow butted." for it 
frequently happens that over an area of forty acres, almost every tree of 
suitable size is hollow near the ground. In other localities, great num- 
bers of trees will be found to be afilicted with "ring rot," where streaks 
of decay, in alternate and consecutive circles, extend around the tree, 
indications of which are pretty sure to be discovered on the outside, or 



96 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

bark, in the shape of "punk knots," and requiring long experience and 
mature discrimination to distinguish the sound from the unsound, for, 
like men, their outside appearance is often deceptive, and hence the pay of 
a veteran timber l)unter, like that of experts in detecting other counter- 
feits, is very liberal. In many other respects the pine tree is liable to 
receive injuries that depreciate its value for lumber, where no rot exists. 
Owing to some peculiar characteristic in the tree itself, or in the soil on 
which it grows, or, as some say, to the force of the winds, the trunk be- 
comes "shaky," the grains, or annual formations of wood, being sepa- 
rated, and destroying its value for any purpose as lumber. But the 
worst of all its enemies is fire, and when we consider the great length of 
time required to grow one of these stately evergreens, the wonder is so 
many of them attain a growth so perfect in size, symmetry, and useful- 
ness Some pine trees are of very rapid growth, while others mature 
very slowly. Of more than a hundred trees of a suitable size for logs, 
the consecutive annual grains, or rings, of which I have on different oc- 
casions counted, the indications were that a period of from one hundred 
and fifty to sixteen hundred years is required to grow one of these noble 
plants to full-size treehood. Only think of the tiny seed that floated 
heedlessly down from the lofty bough of some parent stem, when Christ 
was on earth, and nestling under the falling foliage of deciduous trees, 
found protection until the genial influence of spring opened the germ and 
it took root in solid earth, and through summer's heat and winter's cold, 
and all the dangers of its situation, in spite of storms and lightning's 
subtle shaft, the stem that was once so feeble that a breath would have 
wilted it, now stands before us a majestic tree, and all to provide the un- 
grateful children of men with lumber to build their houses. But the 
men who chop down these giant old trees regard not their age nor the 
lessons they teach, nor do they, nor the men who own the land on which 
they stand, nor those who manufacture their trunks into lumber, see any- 
thing but money in or about them ; so much per thousand feet "stump- 
age," so much for hauling, and so much in the raft for sawed timber. 

Each of these classes of individuals have their peculiarities, but in 
one respect are very much alike ; they all require tools to work with, 
and the speculator in pine lands generally makes use of a pretty keen 
set. Their method of communication is sometimes very shrewd, and, 
ike the Irish lover's dream, '-always goes by contraries," so that outsid- 
ers are always in the dark as to their real meaning. The agent and tim- 
ber hunter, however, is a free and easy fellow, aside from his business, 
aad, unlike his employer, spends his earnings with the recklessness of a 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 97 

sailor. But the boys who chop, saw, haul, and drive the logs are a jolly, 
independent set of fellows, the old-line veterans especially, whose winters 
have all been spent in the woods, command big wages when they do 
work, but disdain most all other kinds of work, spending a few months of 
each and every summer in perfect idleness. But when the time comes 
for them to go up the river, in the fall, the highest wages are always 
given to these experienced woodsmen. These men plan or lay out the 
work for the ensuing winter, erect the camps, open the roads, boat up 
supplies, and make all necessary arrangements for the winter campaign, 
and with them everything is reduced to a perfect system ; they reouire 
no "bossing, " for every man knows his own business, and every man 
works without the presence of an overseer. 

With the march of progress in all the various industries in this country, 
the logging and lumber interest has kept more than even pace, and as 
compared with the management of the same kind of business in Maine 
and the Canadas some forty years ago, the improvements are very great; 
and in no particular are they more apparent than in the mode of living, 
the construction of the camps being more house-like, with comfortable 
cooking and sleeping apartments separate ; the tables being always well, 
even sumptuously, furnished, and the beds well supplied with blankets. 
In tools, bob-sleighs, and all other implements, there are marked im- 
provements which enable operators in this business to perform a greater 
amount of work in a given time than formerly. And when these are 
combined with the wonderfully improved machinery and facilities for 
manufacturing logs into lumber, it is not surprising that the business is 
overdone, and that our pine forests are slaughtered with a rapidity and 
recklessness painful to contemplate. 

Man's destructiveness is so prominent, and his disposition to appropri- 
ate what nature has already provided so greedy, that of all its bounteous 
provisions none are so unsparingly sacrificed as the trees which have re- 
quired ages to grow, and the time has now come when the people of this 
valley should consider these 1 hings with a view to greater economy in the 
destruction of timber. In New York and Pennsylvania, in many localities, 
hemlock has taken the place of pine, — the latter having long since been 
cut away — and for many purposes is found to be a most excellent substi- 
tute. For scantling and all kinds of square lumber, hemlock might be 
used by our mills, which would save so much pine for future use. Large 
quantities of this valuable timber are utterly wasted, chopped and pealed 
for tan-bark, consumed in clearing land, and thrown down in felling pine 
timber, causing constant waste that our children will have reason to de- 
plore. 



98 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Passing over a few years' time, and many important and interesting 
matters and events, to which I shall recur in succeeding chapters, I find 
it necessary to make an appeal to ray readers, to the public, and to each 
and every individual in this valley who is desirous of having the locality 
in which he resides represented in that portion of the history relating to 
the war. 

Isolated as these settlements were for most of the time prior to those 
stirring events — the grandest in the world's history — it would not have 
been strange if many beheld the approach of that terrible conflict with 
indifierence, atd a want of that patriotic ardor that characterized other 
and more favored sections. But it is believed that if all the facts could 
be set forth, of public and personal sacrifice, of heroic devotion, and per- 
sistent patriotic effort in that great struggle, exhibited by the people of 
this valley, it would not only compare favorably with the most loyal com- 
munities in the land, but make a valuable contribution to the history of 
the State. But the means are not at my hand to do justice to the sub- 
ject ; and without the aid of others — many others in all the towns and 
precincts who are in possession of interesting facts and data — to assist 
me in collecting them for this work, much valuable information, and 
many exciting incidents connected with the part borne by our people in 
the fearful contest, will perhaps pass into oblivion, unless collated in this 
homely narration, I therefore ask every oflScer and soldier who went 
from this valley to fight our country's battles, and every patriotic citizen 
•who knows himself or herself to be in possession of any intelligence, serioug 
or comic, facts, incidents, or accounts of soldiers or citizens, no matter 
how humble or obscure, if they were conspicuous for zeal, bravery, or 
self-sacrifice for the good of the country in the hour of peril, to commu- 
nicate the same to me as soon as convenient, that it may be preserved to 
posterity as the heritage of a free and loyal people. More especially do 
I ask the attention of men in official position, town and county officers, 
postmasters, and all men who hold or have held positions of trust and 
honor in the towns, cities and villages of this valley, to aid me in making 
a full, fair and impartial record of the deeds of the brave soldiers who 

xnperiled their lives, and of the sacrifices of the true men and women 
who sustained them through all the dark and wearisome days of defeat, 
and gloom, and doubt, that so long hung like a dark pall over our coun- 
try's hopes. 



GHIPPBWA VALLEY HISTORY. 99 

It is not to individuals alone that I desire to do justice in these pages, 
ibut to localities also ; a careful and just recognition of the claims and 
efforts of each of which will reflect credit and honor upon some neighbor- 
'hoods that have made little pretensions, and are scarcely known in the 
Adjutant-G-eneral's reports, or in any records of the war. 

In the beginning of the war, when no bounties were offered, and patri- 
otism was the sole incentive to enlistments, many volunteers went from 
their homes in obscure places to the villages which received credit for the 
names enrolled there ; and when it was found necessary to order a draft, 
the claims of such localities were utterly ignored, and the draft fell upon 
some communities already thrice decimated by voluntary enlistments. 

Such was the fate of the little town of Lafayette, in Chippewa county, 
a town which, up to the commencement of the war, had never polled more 
than seventy-one votes, quite a number of whom were aged men, unable 
to bear arms, and yet actually furnished, in enlisted and drafted men for 
the war, sixty-five loyal soldiers, a large number of whom rallied under 
the old flag before drafts or bounties were thought of. 

If any town or village in this State can show a better, or as good a 
record, I shall be glad to acknowledge it and make it enduring. Having 
been a resident of that little town when the war commenced, and per- 
sonally acquainted with almost every person in it, the peculiar motives 
which induced some of those early volunteers to enlist, and many note- 
worthy incidents and circumstances connected therewith, are known to 
me ; and though some may consider the trials and experiences of a pri- 
vate soldier unworthy of historical record, there are many I shall be happy 
to chronicle in these pages, as a just tribute to their services and sacrifices. 
Born on a foreign shore, and in a land that had loi% felt the heel of 
the oppressor, were two young men who were in my employment when 
the tocsin of war was sounded. One, very young, ardent, fiery and impa- 
tient, had somewhere witnessed an artillery drill, and determined to enlist 
at the first call for men in that arm of service ; and, taking up a newspa- 
per one day, that announced the organization of the Second Wisconsin 
Battery, and a call for men to fill its ranks, he instantly gave me " notice 
to quit," closed up his affairs, and paid his own fare and expenses all the 
way to Racine, that he might share the perils and fight the battles of the 
country of his adoption. In religion he was a Catholic, and in politics a 
Democrat ; but no braver soldier or truer patriot treads the soil of Wis- 
consin to-day than Tom McGrath. He served through the entire war ;. 
was in all the hard-fought battles in which the Second Battery was 
engaged, but escaped unharmed ; and taking a fair Sucker damsel along 



100 CHIPPBWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

witli him on his return through Illinois, is now settled in a home of his^ 
own in Chippewa county, and a wholesome number of little Democrats 
surround his hearthstone and call him "pa." 

The other was a man of maturer years ; quiet and unobtrusive in his 
demeanor, but determined — almost obstinate — in his opinions. He was ' 
with me as foreman in several undertakings. He had spent several win- 
ters in the South ; owned some good property in Bureau county, Illinois ; 
had always voted the Democratic ticket until he saw the cruelties of 
slavery, and the party committed to upholding that giant wrong, when, 
said he, " conscience would not let me vote that ticket any longer." 
Though a man of few words, he often referred to the horrid cruelties and 
terrible sufferings of the negroes of Arkansas, and gave many instances. 
he had witnessed, exhibiting a refinement of cruelty inflicted by their 
masters, which had burnt into his soul with deathless intensity ; and 
powerless as he then was to afford relief, he had sworn on the altar of 
God, that if the time ever came in which he could do something to redress 
those wrongs, his life was none too precious to lose in such a cause, and, 
if necessary, should be freely offered. 

True to his promise, when Captain Sherman called for men to fill up 
his company of cavalry, he unhitched the team he was driving from the 
plow, and hastened to enroll his name with the defenders of his adopted 
country. A transfer was subsequently effected to an Illinois cavalry 
regiment, by his request, and he soon found himself fighting rebel guer- 
rillas in the same " Rackensack" neighborhood where, years before, he 
had felt his spirit sink within him because there was none to shield the 
oppressed and hurl back the oppressor. But now he saw that the day 
of recompense had come ; and, whether called upon to scour the woods 
and ravines arounll Pea Ridge for guerrillas, or waste his strength in the 
malarious swamps of Mississippi, he never flinched or swerved from the 
line of his duty as a soldier ; and when, in the third year of the war, 
when the great highway of the West had been opened, and New Orleans 
and Vicksburg were ours, and the bright rainbow of peace and promise 
encircled the western horizon, he was called to surrender the life so freely 
offered upon Freedom's altar, not a murmur escaped him ; but he proudly 
declared, in a letter to a friend in Chippewa county, that "if he must 
die, he was glad to lay down his life in such a cause." 

Oh, ye corrupt and truckling politicians, who pander to the prejudices 
of the ignorant, unfeeling and thoughtless multitude that yo may obtain 
place and power, think for a moment with what mighty issues you are 
trifling, and how many noble lives have been laid on the altar you would 
now desecrate with your vile pollutions and trickery ! 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 101 

William McFarland, the Irish- American patriot and soldier whose sao- 
rifices are herein feebly recorded, was only one of that vast army whose 
"souls are still marching on." Inspired alike by the same high sense of 
justice and right, their lives were consecrated to the cause of freedom and 
the emancipation of their fellow men from the thrall of oppression. 

I might mention many others who went from the same place. I might 
speak of young Stowe, who bade adieu to a fond and beautiful wife, who 
had committed her happiness to his keeping only a month or two pre- 
viously, never to embrace her again; of the long, weary watching and 
waiting, and the blank despair when her hopes were finally crushed out ; 
and of the whole score of heroes whose last farewell to wives and loved 
ones took place here, for the sake of the country whose welfare was iden- 
tified with their own. And in every nook and comer of this valley simi- 
lar scenes and struggles and sorrows were experienced, of which, if persons 
who feel an interest in this work would send me brief sketches, they would 
confer a favor, not only upon the author but upon every reader. And to 
every one who is in possession of any material facts, incidents, or other 
data concerning the war, the "Indian scare," enlistment, organization, 
partings and return of our soldiers, conduct and heroism in the service, 
imprisonment in Southern dungeons, and all their hardships and self- 
denial, are fit subjects for this work ; and no matter how clumsy or illite- 
rate any statement may be, it will be gratefully received by the author. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

From the claims I have set up to the loyalty of the people of this val- 
ley, when the war came on, it must not be supposed that all were equally 
zealous, or that none were found to oppose the measures of the adminis- 
tration in suppressing the rebellion. Inherent qualities of the human 
mind, as well as their education, cause men to see things in a difi"erent 
light, and to honestly differ in their opinions on all questions in which 
men feel any interest. 

Next to the interests of religion, that of government should undoubt- 
edly claim our attention. It is this interest in the policy of our govern- 
ment, and because we see things from different standpoints, that divides 
the American people into parties ; but political parties in the United 
States have other and less philosophical reasons for organizing into op- 



102 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

posing parties, besides mere honest convictions in regard to the best 
policy. 

The love of power, and the desire to obtain and hold office, too often 
becomes a controlling element in our elections. The Democratic party 
had so long held the reins of power and controlled all positions of trust 
and honor, before the war, that its adherents began to think that they 
had iin inherent and indefeasible right to them, and fealty to party to be 
regarded as of paramount importance in questions of government. What- 
ever its leaders dictated was blindly followed by the rank and file, and 
no matter how iniquitous or unjust its measures might be, it was consid- 
ered treason not to abjectly foUow its dictates, and the early settler in 
this valley came with all the prejudice and blind subserviency to party 
that characterized its votaries elsewhere. 

AH deprecated the evils of slavery and seemed to regard it as the 
source of, or as threatening, overwhelming disaster to the country, but 
the course to pursue in order to avert it, involved the bitterest contro- 
versies : and, finally, as the question became one of peace or war, may 
be said to have marked the line between the enemies and the friends of 
our government. 

In their eagerness to secure the united vote and influence of the slave- 
holders, both the Whig and the Democratic parties had, eight years be- 
fore, gone down on their knees, and, in the basest and most abject ser- 
vility, craved the privilege of stultifying themselves, of ignoring justice 
and the claims of manhood and freedom, and of doing any amount of 
dirty work for the party, for the sake of office, and as the Democratic 
party succeeded, its leaders supposed they could always win by such base- 
ness, and then it was that the party, in this State, was compelled to go 
back on its previous record, and take up the refrain of the South, that 
"slavery was ordained of God, and that the negro had no rights that 
white men were bound to respect." And even the Church and the min- 
isters of religion echoed these horrid sentiments with solemn and pom- 
pous arrogance, so that for a time it seemed as though justice, mercy, 
and truth had taken their flight from the earth, and there was none to 
shield the oppressed and hurl baek the oppressor. But all good men of 
iDOth political parties beheld this state of things with alarm and conster- 
nation ; and assuming from the light of the past that further concessions 
to the slave power^would only defer for a season, but could not avert, the 
impending calamity, formed a new party, feeble, indeed, at first, and 
seemingly powerless to grapple with an adversary so arrogant and pow- 
erful, but gathering such strength in a few years as to convince the world 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 103 

that justice, truth, and freedom for all constitute the only foundation of 
good government. 

The insatiable demands and exactions of the slaveholding wing of the 
Democratic party became insupportable to a great many of the best men 
of the party, and the press, the rostrum, and the pulpit of the Free 
States soon recognized the necessity of a higher standard of political 
faith and ethics, and joined their fortunes with the new party as the only 
hope of salvation for the country. 

But the most influential, perhaps, of all the agencies employed to re- 
form public sentiment and mould the opinions and political thought upon 
a higher plane and into purer channels, were certain works of fiction, 
the most conspicuous of which was Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
which, being dramatized, exhibited the awful horrors of the system of 
slavery to the most ignorant classes with telling effect. 

In the Church, the most liberal and progressive sects were the first to 
plant themselves on the broad ground of freedom for all and exact jus- 
tice to every human being, as the objects of "His care whose tender mer- 
cies are over all His works." And foremost among these in the great 
work of reform may be mentioned the Congregationalist, Universalist, 
and Methodist Churches, whose periodical literature had for several years 
previous been out-spoken in denouncing the horrid traffic in human be- 
ings as the sum of all villainies. 

During the winter preceding the war, while the Southern States were 
busy taking themselves out of the Union, the prejudices of our people in 
favor of party as against country were sometimes painfully apparent. 
On one occasion, the writer dined at a hotel in Eau Claire, at which 
were present some thirty or forty of the business and influential citizens 
of the town and country, and adverting during the conversation to the 
attitude assumed by South Carolina, remarked that "it looks now as 
though, in order to save the country, we shall have to fight." When, to 
his astonishment, nearly a dozen of the most prominent who were pres- 
ent, from town and country, instantly replied, "If it comes to that, we 
shall be found in some Southern regiment." 

Three newspapers were at that time published in this valley, two of 
which, the Eau Claire Free Press, edited by Gilbert E. Porter, and the 
Dunn County Lumberman, edited by E. S. Bundy, were able advocates 
of the cause of freedom, but the Chippewa Falls Demticrat, conducted 
by Joseph and A. W. Delaney, subject to the trammels of party, halted 
long between two opinions, but finally succumbed to circumstances and 
retired from the field, before actual commencement of hostilities. 



104 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Of tbe legal fraternity, as a body, not much can be said in their fa- 
vor as self-sacrificing citizens and patriots. HoUon Richardson, of Chip- 
pewa Falls, (a Democrat), Hon, Pitt Bartlett, Horace Barnes, and Mr. 
Spencer, of Eau Claire, Col. E. M. Bartlett, then of Durand, and the 
Bundy brothers, of Menomonie, all gave their hearty support to the gov- 
ernment under the new, or Republican, administration. Hon. Alexander 
Meggett, Democrat, prepared an able speech in defense of the war, ex- 
tracts from which will be given hereafter. But devotion to the Democratic 
party had so long been the only passport to political preferment, that a 
very large share of the legal profession had staked all their ambitious 
hopes on its success. 

Nearly every clergyman in this valley did honor to himself and the 
profession, by acts of loyalty and words of hope in the darkest hours of 
our country's peril. Rev. Bradley Phillips, of Chippewa Falls, wrote 
to his pro-slavery Presbyterian paper that its tone must be changed or 
the paper stopped. Rev. Mr. Kidder's voice was always for the Union, 
and for the war to uphold and preserve it. The itinerants of the M. E. 
Church, following the lead of the late lamented Dr. Eddy, of the North- 
western Advocate, boldly declared to their congregations that no man 
could be a good Methodist and uphold slavery. 

A Christian minister, whose flock were politically divided, and whose 
living depended upon their united support, stood in need of a double 
supply of grace to enable him to act upon his convictions at such a time. 
Bev. J. 0. Barrett, Universalist, of Eau Claire, was thus circumstanced; 
his parish was feeble, at best, and his congregation about equally divided 
in regard to the war, and the object for which it was waged ; but his 
whole soul was in the cause of freedom and the Union, and he was rec- 
ognized on all public occasions as an eloquent and powerful advocate of 
Republican principles and the cause of liberty. 

A large majority of the Democrats here belonged to the Douglass wing 
of the party, and tliat statesman's speech in Chicago, after the firing up- 
on Fort Sumter, caused many to pause in their mad and treasonable op- 
position to the government. But through the war, their sullen silence or 
half-suppressed groans, whenever news of success to the Union arms 
came over the wires, showed plainly where their sympathies were, as 
though they somehow realized that every shot aimed at the enemy was 
fired at their idolized party, and on the other hand, when misfortunes be- 
fell the Union cause, and during all the long, dark months of doubt and 
adversity, when the life of the nation hung in the balance, it was impos- 
sible for such men to conceal the satisfaction and delight with which ev- 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 105 

ery reverse of the Union arms was received. But who shall describe the 
agony, the bitterness, mortification, and sorrow of those weary, waiting 
months, to the anxious friends of freedom and the Union, as day after 
day brought new disasters, and the jeers, and ridicule, and triumph of 
its enemies were heaped upon them, with insolent and insufferable arro- 
gance and effrontery ? 

Were all those sorrows and sufferings and all those sacrifices in vain ; 
these terrible burdens and the lives of our sons, brothers, and fathers laid 
day after day and month after month, upon our country's altar, all for 
naught ? But more fearful and agonizing still was the ever-recurring 
question, Shall wrong and injustice and oppression forever triumph ? Shall 
slavery plant its heel upon all these fair fields, and curse forever with 
its blighting influence, the fairest portion of the heritage of man ? Shall 
the bright escutcheon of American liberty be forever darkened by the 
awful cruelties of a system of legalized robbery ? 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

In the preceding chapter the writer endeavored to portray the condi- 
tion of the public mind, and the causes that led thereto, as the country 
found itself upon the verge of civil war ; and also to point out in some 
measure the evils of a blind subserviency to party, rather than devotion 
to the claims of country, liberty and justice. The rancor and partisan 
hate which characterized much of the opposition to the Grovernment in 
its struggles to put down the rebellion, and the fire in the rear, which, 
more than all other causes, protracted the war and encouraged the rebels 
to hold out, ought as a lesson of history to teach the American people 
that our supreme duty and devotion are due to the country, first, last, 
and always. 

These views are nobly and forcibly set forth in the powerful war speech 
of Hon. Alex. Meggett, in August, 1862, referred to in my last, and de- 
livered with great power to an immense audience, and published in the 
papers of that date ; a copy of which he has kindly furnished, from which 
I shall make copious extracts, as expressive of the sentiments of all loyal 



106 CHIPPEVTA VALLEY HISTORY. 

men at that period, whether Republicans or Democrats, and especially of 
the earnest, patriotic and comprehensive faith of the speaker in the sta- 
bility of Republican institutions. 

Having introduced his subject with a few appropriate preliminary 
remarks, Mr. Meggett said : "After nearly half a century of peace — a 
period which has made for us a splendid and almost romantic history as a 
people — in an evil hour, goaded by a love of despotism and an insatiable 
desire for power, the viper of secession has reared its hydra head, and 
plunged its fangs into the vitals of the Republic. It were easy to indulge 
in speculations as to the causes which produced this untoward state of 
events, but this is no time for such reflections. They should be left to 
calmer and less perilous moments of our national life. Standing as we 
do on the very verge of destruction to the American experiment of free 
government on this continent, we, each and all of us, have far less to do 
with inilucing causes than with the fact that danger is at this moment 
upon us. What seemed at first but a factious sectional resistance to the 
Federal Government, easy to be quelled, has come to be a powerful and 
gigantic rebellion against the Constitution and the liberties it guaranteed, 
calling upon us for the raising and expenditure of vast pecuniary resources, 
the mustering of millions of men, and the exercise of the highest military 
skill, to crush its mighty power and thwart its fiendish designs upon our 
once united Republic. 

" And for what cause, we may well ask, is this worst of all wars waged? 
Has the Government become tyrannical, and trampled upon the sacred 
and guaranteed rights of those who wage it? Has it rrfused to enforce 
equal laws, and conform to the Constitution? Has it imposed unequal 
and grievous burdens upon them '! Has it degenerated into a state of 
corruption and imbecility, so that it had become unworthy of their afi'ec- 
tions, refused to listen to their constitutional demands, and turned away 
from them when they sought its protection ? No ; not one of all these 
causes exists in the least degree ; but on the contrary, against the public 
conscience, and yet in the spirit of concession, the majority have long per- 
mitted it to extend a special protection to their rights and peculiar insti- 
tutions. Is it then a war without a cause ? Yes ! in every way. Yet 
it has a deep-laid design. It is a war between two diverse civilizations, 
between two diverse systems of labor. Strange anomaly ! It is the old 
confiict which so often outcrops in history — that of aristocracy and class 
power against the people and right, waged for the first time under a free 
government. It is this old ' irrepressible conflict, ' in which lust tor 
power seeks to subvert public liberty and tyrannize over the masses. In 



CUIPPEWA TALLEY HISTORY. 107 

short, it is a war upon the great experiment of free government upon 
these western shores, and it must be apparent to every reflecting mind 
that the triumph of this rebellion will determine at once and forever 
against the success of that experiment. * * * 

Fearless and honest words in times like these are what we need, and it 
may as well be proclaimed first as last to the ear of every loyal citizen, 
that this conflict is waged for the purpose of destroying our government, 
and inaugurating upon its ruins a political system which must sooner or 
later sweep away the liberties of the people, and which, if established, 
will seek 

" • To bind, to loose, to build and to destroyf 
In peace ; in war to govern ; nay, to rule 
Our very fate, like some Satanic being.' 

" Then let us rise as good citizens to a true comprehension oi the work 
before us, for it is our own freedom that is endangered. Shall confeder- 
ate minions triumph in such an inglorious cause ? Shall the old flag, the 
historic emblem of just and equal government, fall before such a foe, to 
give place to an ensign symbolizing tyranny and brute force ?" [Voices — 
" Never! never !"] 

Up to this date the Government had not deemed it necessary to order 
a draft, and it was hoped the patriotic ardor of the people would fill up 
the ranks of the Union without resorting to such measures ; and the 
speaker, after referring to the evils and hardships which such a necessity 
would impose, invokes the patriotism of his hearers in the following elo- 
quent and stirring appeal : 

"Never let it be written in future history that Northern freemen were- 
subjected to draft to fight for the preservation of their liberties. We to- 
day are making that history, and let us by deeds and sacrifices gild its 
pages with the living light of patriotic fire. Let it go down to posterity, 
that when the imperiled liberties of our country demanded action, sacri- 
fices and blood, all was freely laid upon its altar. Let it be told with 
conscious pride, by those who come after us, that when the Republic was 
assailed by ruthless traitors, and about to perish, the people with spon- 
taneous and patriotic devotion rescued it from danger, by heroic deeds of 
valor on every battlefield, and never for a moment faltered. In one loud 
and united refrain from every loyal breast, let the sentiment come forth 
by the love which its citizens cherish for it : ' The Union must and shall 
be preserved.' * * * * 

When a government like ours is in danger, there is but one mode of 
making it eff"ectual in the work of self-preservation, and that is by every 
citizen taking his stand fast by it in every position it may assume. We 



108 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTOET. 

may not like the President's policy in regard to the negro, but I am one 
who believes that those whom we elect to places of trust, as a general 
rule, are the best judges, for the time being, of what should or should 
not be done. Hence, as true citizens, let us always stand where the 
Government stands, and give it all the force of our individual support." 

Referring to the long-talked-of intervention of other powers, Mr. Meg- 
gett earnestly pleaded thus : 

"The work, fellow-citizens, must be speedily done, or more fearful 
work and more onerous responsibilities may be imposed upon us. It may 
not be generally known to you, that nearly three years prior to the war 
of 1812, when far-saeing statesmen saw the approaching storm, one of the 
principal European powers sent one of its secret agents to Boston to see 
upon what terms New England would make a political alliance with it in 
case of separation from the Union, and to foment discord between its 
extreme sections. Now, is it less reasonable to suppose, as that same 
power contemplates with jealousy the rapid growth, national gran- 
deur and increasing power and resources of this "Western Republic, that 
it will lose so favorable an opportunity to humble it if possible. In every 
view of the case, then, fellow-citizens, we have no time to lose if we would 
avoid such a calamity, and successfully crush out this atrocious rebellion, 
and it can only be made successful by a war that shall demonstrate by 
actual and thorough conquest the superiority of Northern over Southern 
society and civilization — of free over despotic institutions. Such it should 
be, and by the help of the God of Battles such it shall be. It should be 
a war sanctified and made holy by our patriotic efforts to preserve and 
secure the perpetuity of the Union, and maintain the honor of the Old 
Flag. * * * Under its graceful folds, still adorned with every star 
of the Republic, hallowed with Revolutionary memories and still inspir- 
ing hope for the future, let us to-day, as loyal citizens, renew our vows 
of fealty to the Union of these States, and go forth to trample secession 
under our feet, and teach rebellious States that peace and safety for them 
lies only in the bosom of the old Republic." [Tremendous cheering.] 

Are these lessons such as we should soon forget ? Should not the 
memory of the scenes, sufferings and sacrifices still warn us to be ever 
watchful and vigilant ? Are all those enemies, then so powerful and dan- 
gerous, now peaceful, loyal citizens, and worthy supporters of tlie Con- 
stitution and Union, that we should confide power to their hands? Or 
are many of them still as rebellious as ever, and as ready to wreak their 
bate and detestation of the Old Flag upon any and all Union-loving men? 



CHIPPEWA VALLBY HISTORY. 109 

CHAPTER XXVII 

"Wisconsin in the War of the Rebellion," by Rev. Mr. Love, is un- 
doubtedly the most reliable and comprehensive history of what the State 
and the people of Wisconsin did during that terrible conflict, to sustain 
the national honor and crush its foes ; but full and complete as the above 
work is in all its details, their was one department which the author was 
necessarily compelled to leave untouched. Data were furnished him in 
regard to each company and regiment, from the time of mustering into 
service, from which his work was compiled ; while all the patriotic exer- 
tions of the officers, and of the people, in filling up the ranks of the dif- 
ferent companies of each regiment, and providing for their comfort ; war 
meetings, speeches, and many incidents attending their enlistment and 
departure to the field of strife, furnish material for interesting local his- 
tory which I have been very anxious to glean up and place before my 
readers. The faithful and indefatigable author above named, has, it 
seems to me, left little room for any one to add to the bright record of 
Wisconsin's heroic soldiers, from the time of their reaching camp to the 
final mustering out. But prior to that time, in most cases, not even 
the locality is given where the several companies composing each regi- 
ment were enrolled. 

To follow each regiment to which the troops from this valley were 
assigned, through all their marches and sufferings, and recount their 
achievements and heroic conduct on hundreds of well-fought fields ; 
through all the vicissitudes of those sanguinary battles and final triumph 
of our cause, however agreeable it might be to me to set these things 
forth, would, to a great extent, be only a repetition of what others have 
already recorded, and swell this work to much greater dimensions than it 
was at first proposed to extend it. I shall confine myself, therefore, to 
those events and circumstances relating to the initial experience of our 
soldiers and citizens in enlisting and organizing soldiers for the war, and 
the difficulties encountered therein. 

On the 11th of April, 1861, Fort Sumpter was fired upon by the rebel 
batteries, and on the 14th day of the same month President Lincoln is- 
sued a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand troops for three 
months. 

One regiment was assigned to Wisconsin as her quota, and she immedi- 
ately responded, this regiment being mustered into United States service 
on the 17th of^May,[and left for the seat of war June 9th. Such was 
the enthusiasm of thejpeople, that in six days after Governor Randall is- 



110 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

sued his proclamation, the first regiment was enrolled and ready for ser- 
vice. 

Vast numbers in every part of the State were ready to enlist, and 
many other companies were ready to report, among whom were the Dunn 
County Pinery Rifles, afterward assigned to the Fifth Regiment, Co. 
K, Captain William Evans, of Menomonie ; C. A. Bayard, First, and 
J. A. Hill, Second, Lieutenant. The regiment was comn.anded by Col. 
Amasa Cobb, and was one of the first of three years' men to take the 
field ; was mustered into U. S. service by Capt. Mclntire, of the regular 
army, on the 13th "of July, 1861. 

Company K was the first, and, for a long time, the only, organized 
company from this valley, and owed its existence mainly to the zeal and 
patriotic efi"orts of the ladies of Menomonie, one of whom, Miss Eliza 
"Wilson, accompanied the regiment to the field. Yes, the first war meet- 
ing that assembled in this valley to organize a company of soldiers to put 
down the rebellion, was called by the patriotic women of Menomonie, and 
apropos to the occasion, the Dunn Couty Lumberman of that date, then 
edited by A. S. Bundy, Esq., truly remarked : "There is no more con- 
vincing proof of the terrible earnestness of the whole people in this 
national struggle, than the heroism evinced by the women of the land." 

Although this one company, the Dunn County Pinery Rifles, appears 
to have been the only one in the Fifth Regiment from this valley, I can- 
not forbear mentioning some of the many glorious achievements of this 
veteran regiment. It was this heroic band of Badgers that saved Wheel- 
er's Battery and won the day at the battle of Williamsburg, that with 
the Sixth and Seventh Maine, and three companies of the Thirty-third 
New York, less than fifteen hundred men, withstood one of the most furi- 
ous and terrible onsets of the war, made by six Confederate regiments, 
more than four thousand of the best chivalry of the South. The battle 
flag of the Fifth North Carolina was captured by the Fifth Wisconsin, 
in this battle, and on dress parade two days after, Gon. McClellan com- 
plimented the regiment in the handsomest manner, saying, "You have 
gained honor for your country, your State, and the army to which you 
belong. Through you, we gained the day, and Williamsburg shall be in- 
scribed on your banner. * * * j^y ypuj. actions and su- 
perior discipline, you have gained a reputation which shall be known 
through the army of the Potomac. Your country owes you its grateful 
thanks." 

But in this and the many other fearfully contested engagements near 
Richmond and at Antietam, the Fifth was terribly decimated, ''aptain 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. Ill 

Evans was mortally wounded in the action at Grolden Farms, Va. , and 
more than half his company had fallen, by wounds and disease, during 
the first eighteen months of its service. Captain J. M. Mott succeeded 
to the command of the Rifles, but died of disease on the 26th of July, 
1863. 

Early in the summer of 1861, a recruiting sergeant of the Thirteenth 
U. S. Regular Infantry took rooms at the Eau Claire House and enlisted 
about twenty young men, among whom were Levi Hemingway and sev- 
eral others from Chippewa Falls. 

The disastrous results of the "On to Richmond" campaign, in the 
summer of 1862, alarmed the nation and the people, and stirring appeals 
for men to enlist were the order of the day. 

Receiving a recruiting commission from the Governor, HoUon Richard- 
son, Esq. , a rising young lawyer of Chippewa Falls, converted his law 
ofl&ee into a recruiting station, and by great personal exertion and the as- 
sistance of a few friends, raised a company of men, which was incorpor- 
ated in the Seventh Regiment as Co. A, of which he was commissioned 
First Lieutenant on the 13th day of September, 1862. 

One of the greatest difficulties to be overcome after enrolling his com- 
pany, was to procure sustenance and transportation. The river was very 
low, and no steamboats running ; to march raw recruits one hundred 
miles to Sparta was out of the question. In this dilemma, Adin Randall, 
always patriotic and full of expedients, came to the aid of the young 
lieutenant and the country. An old ferry-boat that had given place to 
a better one, was soon repaired and at the disposal of the government. 
The ladies of the village had made a beautiful flag for the company, which 
was duly presented on the day of its departure. Provisions for the trip 
down the river were contributed by the loyal citizens, and away floated 
the scow, with the benedictions of a great crowd of friends and patriots 
resting upon its precious freight — a mixed company of different races and 
nationalities, but all burning with patriotic zeal and a determination to 
maintain the honor of the flag under whose folds they had set sail. With 
few mishaps, such as getting on sand-bars and short rations, the company 
reached the Mississippi at Read's Landing, from whence the government 
had made arrangements for their transportation to Madison. 

Of the achievements of the Seventh Regiment under its four com- 
manders, Van Dor, Robinson, Finnicum, and Richardson, as part of the 
Iron Brigade, I need not speak ; its history is the history of the Army 
of the Potomac, and so long as great sacrifices, indomitable courage, and 
brave deeds are esteemed among men, the history of the Seventh Wis- 



112 CHIPPEWA TAILEY HISTORY. 

consin Volunteers during the war of the rebellion will be regarded as one 
of the brightest on the pages of our nation's annals. And our young 
Lieutenant comes in for a full share of the glory of its bright record, be- 
ing promoted through all the gradations to the position of colonel, and 
breveted general for meretorious conduct at the battle of Five Forks, in 
leading the charge of his regiment, carrying its battle-flag aloft with his 
own hand as he clieered on the men. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



THE SCARE. 



I suppose the organ of caution or fear was given man as a very neces- 
sary element in his composition to guard against danger ; but when sud- 
denly or unduly excited, and especially from concealed or imaginary evils, 
sometimes leads to ludicrous misapprehensions or fatal consequences. The 
very fact that the danger is illy defined, or its point and whence it is to 
come hid from view, always invests it with indefinable dread, and causes 
what are known as panics. And panics, whether in monetary and finan- 
cial circles, in an army or community, are usually fraught with very seri- 
ous evils. Of the first, the Rhode Island Senator declared there was 
nothing under heaven so cowardly as five hundred thousand dollars, un- 
less it be a million, which accounts for their frequent occurrence in the 
business world ; and so often have the people of the United States been 
aflBicted with this kind of "scare," that they expect about every ten 
years or so to be frightened out of their wits by some convulsion in finan- 
cial affairs. 

And the best disciplined armies in the world are subject to the malady. 
The first Bull Run was lost to us through a panic. The Bible often 
speaks of great armies suddenly stricken with dismay, and profane history 
everywhere abounds with instances of even well trained armies seized 
with unaccountable terror, just as victory was ready to perch upon their 
standards. But what shall we say when whole communities become par- 
alyzed with fear ; when the people in half a dozen counties, covering an 
area of hundreds of miles in extent, are in a moment seized with dread 
and fearful apprehension from unseen danger — from a foe whom no one 
has seen, and which in the very nature of things could have no existence. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 113 

Nevertheless, such was the fate of Dunn, Chippewa, Eau Claire, Buf- 
falo, Trempeleau, Jackson, Clark and Monroe counties, on the last Sun- 
day of August, 1862. A few weeks before, at New Ulm and other local- 
ities* in Minnesota, bands of Sioux Indians, while feigning friendship, had 
fallen upon the unsuspecting settlers and committed the most horrid bar- 
barities, murdering men, women and children, maiming and torturing 
those left alive and mutilating the bodies of their victims, and carrying 
terror and dismay into every remote settlement in the Northwest. Sto- 
ries of these fiendish cruelties were everywhere circulated, and the timid 
caught up every whisper of news in regard to the Indians on our frontier, 
and every hostile indication was a thousand times magnified, until many 
really supposed that all the Indians on the continent were stealthily 
assembling in their neighborhood, prepared without a moment's warning 
to wreak their brutal ferocity upon our defenceless heads. Under such 
circumstances, the very atmosphere becomes laden with terror, and the 
slightest intimation of approaching danger is heralded in hot haste from 
neighbor to neighbor and from village to village, without any definite 
knowledge or tangible reason for their alarm. 

In the early morning of the Sabbath in question, a dense fog rested 
upon the landscape in all the region named, and terror-stricken pedes- 
trians in several localities, their vision strained to discover danger, imag- 
ined that stumps were armed savages and gopher-hills were forts, and 
forthwith the country was alarmed. Indians had been seen in the big 
woods with hostile intent ; a thousand of the fiends were assembled in the 
big swamp on Mud Creek, and as many more at Point Bruley, on the 
Chippewa bottom. Sudden and improbable as such statements were, 
almost every one put faith in them, and ran to his nearest neighbor to 
know what he should do. People in the country rushed with frantic 
haste to the villages, carrying with them everything in the shape of 
weapons for ofi"ensive or defensive operations, while in the city everything 
was m a state of consternation and dread ; but all were resolved to defend 
their homes to the last. 

At Chippewa Falls Rev. Bradle^^ Phillips was chosen captain of the 
army of defense, with headquarters at the church. Pickets were sta- 
tioned at every vulnerable point, armed with rifles, shotguns, pitchforks, 
scythes and spades ; patrols guarded the streets at every corner, and 
squads of men marched from point to point, where danger was most im- 
minent ; but the only enemy discovered was in the shape of sundry jugs 
of whisky, which before morning laid many a gallant soldier low on the 
field of battle. 



114 CHIPPEWA VALLEY UISTORY. 

At Eau Claire, the alarm being sounded early in the day, the churches 
were instantly emptied, and the worshipers, like the puritans of old, flew 
to arms, resolved individually, no doubt, that as " the earth is the Lord's 
and the fullness thereof," and as he had given it to them, his saints, to 
possess it, they would defend their homes to the last. A large body of 
citizen soldiers were at once enrolled, who, by virtue of a commission from 
the Grovernor some years before, appointing Wm. Pitt Bartlett, Esq., an 
officer in the militia of this department of the State, with the rank of 
Major, would rightfully be subject to the command of that official ; but 
recognizing the extreme danger, and the necessity of greater military 
experience to give prompt direction to the forces, so ardent and yet so 
green, that gentleman deferred to the wishes of his fellow citizens in the 
selection of a veteran soldier to command the citizen brigade in this emer- 
gency. But where could such a person be found ? He was here at the 
call of his adopted country. A Grerman had joined his fortunes with 
Walker in his filibustering expedition against Nicaragua, and like him 
had lost, but unlike him had saved his head, and, imitating the exiled 
Whaley, came to the rescue of the beleaguered village with all the expe- 
rience of a trained soldier. 

E. R. Hantzsch was a rigid disciplinarian. The best troops in the 
world could accomplish nothing without discipline, and his first business 
was to organize and drill the command; and ordering all to report in- 
stantly, on Union Square, he was soon surrounded by a rabble rout, 
impatient to be led against the foe. Not so with the commander. He 
knew that discretion was the better part of valor ; and after organizing 
his forces and appointing his subordinates, his next concern was to see 
that each and every detachment was well supplied with rations for the 
campaign. 

Fine-cut to fill their meerschaums, and lager, were the principal items 
of inquiry with the German element ; but whisky was the great staple 
with the river boys. Many ludicrous scenes and circumstances occurred 
in arming and equipping the diiferent squads, and in posting them for the 
night ; and as rumors of the enenfy's approach were constantly coming 
in, confusion, alarm and insubordination were to be expected, especially 
when we consider that for many miles around the farmers, with their 
wives and children, had thronged pell mell to the village, and filled every 
nook and corner of every public house ; and between squalling children, 
frightened mothers and half-sober men a pretty lively time was kept up. 
But the night wore away, and the morning revealed no enemy, save that 
subtle foe whose victims wore laid hors du combat beside every camp-fire. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 115 

Many other villages were equally alarmed, and just as prompt to defend 
their homes ; and all that seems wanting to make a bright page in our 
■valley's history is the enemy. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

"THE EAGLE REGIMENT." 

Perhaps no regiment of volunteers was mustered in the United States 
service during the war, that performed more service, marched as many 
miles and did as much hard fighting as the Eighth Wisconsin. 

It seems to have been constantly in motion ; and being one of the first 
in the field from this State, and having the first company organized in 
Eau Claire, and that the company which furnished the live eagle, it will 
supply material for some interesting statements in this work. 

Early in August, 1861, John E. Perkins, Receiver in the Land Ofl5.ce 
in this place, received a recruiting commission from Governor Randall, 
and being assisted by Seth Pierce, Frank McGruire, Thomas G. Butler 
and Victor Wolf, who enlisted, and several patriotic citizens, though 
without any offer of bounties, organized the first company of volunteers 
for the war from this county. It was composed largely of men from the 
country, and quite a number from Lafayette in Chippewa county. 

Speaking of the battle of luka and Corinth, the Rev. Mr. Love says : 
" The eagle of the Eighth Regiment took a noticeable part in this battle. 
That eagle was originally captured by the Indian * Chief Sky, ' in the 
northern part of Wisconsin, near the Flambeau river, a branch of the 
Chippewa. The ' Eau Claire Eagles' brought him to the Eighth Regi- 
ment at Madison. Captain Perkins, afterward killed at the battle of 
Farmington, gave the name ' Old Abe' to the eagle, in memory of the 
services of Abraham Lincoln, and the bird gave the name ' Eagle' to the 
regiment. He generally rode on the banners of the regiment in all its 
marches, and manifested a singular sagacity. In time of battle he kept 
his place on his perch, upon the colors, and showed the highest interest 
and excitement, often jumping up and down, spreading his pinions, and 
uttering his wild eagle screams." 

The name of the Indian, " Chief Sky," and the locality in which the 
eagle was taken, as given by Mr. Love, are probably correct j but it is 



116 CHIPPEWA VALLEY UISTORY. 

proper to state that S. S. McCann, the old pioneer and soldier, bought 
him of the Indian at Chippewa City, town of Eagle Point, Chippewa 
county, and brought him to Eau Claire while Company C was filling up. 
Mills Jeffries bought him of McCann and presented him to the company, 
who immediately changed their title from "Eau Claire Badgers" to that 
of "Eagles." 

The officers of the regiment were very anxious to appropriate not only 
the title, but the bird itself, to their ownership ; but Captain Wolf and 
other company officers thought it was sufficient to confer the title upon 
the regiment, while the company should own and control the eagle ; 
which they continued to do until the fall of 1864, when the veterans re- 
ceived a furlough home, when Captain Wolf, on behalf of the company, 
presented the aoble bird to Governor Lewis, for the State of Wisconsin. 

Captain William J. Dawes, who was severely wounded on the first day 
of the battle. October 3d, 1862, says : " The same volley that did the 
mischief cut the cord of Old Abe, who sat on his perch viewing the scene, 
and slowly raising himself on his broad pinions, floated off over the 
rebel lines until I lost sight of him. I was gathered up in a blanket and 
carried from the field, hardly knowing which most to deplore, our defeat, 
my own disaster, or the loss of our guardian xgls. Our broken regi- 
iment fell back and passed me, as I Avas slowly carried along, and raising 
my head to salute them, what joy filled my heart when I saw our noble 
bird in his proper place. And it was a sure omen of the terrible slaugh- 
ter made among the rebels the next day. Our eagle accompanied us on 
the bloody field, and I heard prisoners say they would give more to cap- 
ture the eagle of the Eighth Wisconsin than to take a whole brigade of 
men." 

Captain Perkins, with his Eagles, was assigned to the position in the 
Eigth Kegimcnt as Co. C, and was mustered into the service of the 
United States on the 4th day of September, 1861, under the superin- 
tendence of Colonel Robert C. Murphy, and immediately left Camp Ean- 
dall for active service in the field. 

At St. Louis, tlie live eagle created immense enthusiasm, it being the 
first vVisconsin regiment that had been ordered to that department. Its 
field of operations during the fall and winter was Missouri and Northern 
Arkansas. It was at the capture of Island No. Ten, in April, 1862, 
and for gallantry displayed in this campaign, General Pope ordered Is- 
land No. Ten and New Madrid inscribed on their banners. Up the Ten- 
nessee on the first of May, and on the 9th took part in the battle of 
Farmington, where Captain Perkins lost his life, and was su^ceedcd^in 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY UISTORY. 117 

command by that veteran soldier and accomplished officer, Captain Vic- 
tor Wolf. 

On the 28th the regiment was brought into a hand-to-hand fight, to 
save a battery, and were complimented on the field for their bravery by 
Oencrals Plummer and Tyler. 

The Eigth was kept continually moving, in Tennessee and Mississippi, 
thence back into Missouri and Kansas, thence to the siege and capture of 
Vicksburg, at Nashville under G-eneral Thomas, and finally, after 
th<3 veterans had their furlough home, taking the eagle with them, and 
filling up their decimated ranks, were sent down the Mississippi to New 
Orleans and thence to Mobile, in the siege of which the regiment did its 
last hard fighting, losing two men at Fort Blakely on the 27th of March, 
1865, and were mustered out at Demopolis, Alabama, the following Sep- 
tember. The eagle still lives at the Capitol of our noble State, hale and 
hearty. During the war, the regiment lost in action, thirty-five ; died 
of wounds, fourteen ; died of disease, two hundred and one ; died by 
accident, five ; making in all, two hundred and fifty-five ; twenty-one of 
whom, including Captain Perkins, were from Co. C. 

Among the reasons assigned by G-eneral McClellan for delaying active 
operations against the enemy, in the fall of 1861, was the want of cav- 
alry, and orders were immediately issued to the authorities of each State 
to recruit cavalry regiments to supply the want. In November of that 
year, Arthur M. Sherman, of Eau Claire, returned from Madison with 
authority to recruit a company for the Second Regiment, then filling up 
under the superintendence of Colonel C. C. "Washburn. On some ac- 
count or other, the undertaking mot with less encouragement from the 
citizens than it deserved, and some even manifested opposition, and cir- 
culated reports that the government had countermanded the order for 
cavalry, and if men enlisted as such, they would not be mounted. But 
calling to his assistance some determined young men, among whom were 
Israel Burbank, Thomas J. Nary, George E. Grout, Len. L. Lancaster, 
and Milo B. Wyman, of Eau Claire, and James LeRoy, of Chippewa 
Falls, the company was ready with eighty-seven enlisted men by the first 
of January, 1862, and was mustered into the United States service soon 
after, and were mounted at Benton Barrack, Mo., in March. 

The commissioned officers of the company, at first, were Arthur M. 
Sherman, Captain ; Israel B. Burbank, First, and Thos. Nary, Second, 
Lieutenant. 

Like most of the Western cavalry regiments, the Second Wisconsin 
was divided into batalions and scattered over the departments of th« 



118 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Mississippi and the Tennessee, guarding railroads, fighting guerrillas, 
making raids into the enemy's country, doing provost duty, seizing cot- 
ton, and harassing the rebels generally. Stationed in malarious and un- 
healthy localities during the summer of 1872, the mortality from disease 
was very great, and much suffering was caused by their confinement in 
bad hospitals. Many amusing and some thrilling incidents are related of 
sudden attacks and hand-to-hand conflicts with guerrillas, while stationed 
in Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, and other Southern States, one of 
which is too good to be lost. Among those who came with Le Roy from 
Chippewa Falls and joined Co. L, to which our company was assigned, 
was a Frenchman, named Louis Blair, a first-class river pilot, both be- 
fore and since the war. On one occasion, Louis made one of a party of 
six to reconnoiter a certain road leading from their post into the interior, 
just then infested by guerrillas, a strong party of whom came suddenly 
upon our little squad, some of whom escaped by flight, but Louis, being 
wounded, must surrender or fight. I will try to tell the rest in his own 
language as related to me during the past summer. 

"I know dat guerrilla reb too well to tink dey keep dare word wid me 
if I surrender-r-r ; and don't been all, I don't been made dat kind of 
stuff, an' I was tole him he might cut me up, but surrender, no sir-ee. 
A dozen of de cowardly villain den make for me, an' you see dat scar on 
my face, an' dat one on my neck?" Then, uncovering his back and 
breast, he showed scar after scar where great saber wounds had been in- 
flicted. *'An' dare, an' dare," said he, "dey cut an' gash me, an' all 
de time dey say, 'Surrender, you d — n Dutch Yankee.' But by an' by 
our boy was come, and den de reb he was shoot me right dare," pointing 
to another scar. "When our boy dey come, dey tink I was dead, but I 
don't been goin' die dat way." 

The most severe fighting done by the Second Cavalry was with Gen. 
Grierson, in his great raid into Mississippi, in 1864. Its last work was 
done in Texas, where, at Austin, on the 15th of November, 1865, they 
were mustered out of service, having served four years lacking one 
month, and lost, in killed, wounded, and by disease, two hundred and 
eight of their number, thirty of whom were of Co. L. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 119, 



CHAPTER XXX 



At the beginning of the war, our valley contained numerous settle- 
ments composed mostly of Germans and Irish, but very few of the pres- 
ent extensive Scandinavian population had then located here, and those 
were widely separated, so that when the call was made for the Fifteenth 
Regiment, to be composed exclusively of that nationality, it was found a 
difficult task to enlist a company, and only one individual was brave 
enough to undertake it. 

0. R. Dahl was educated at a military school in Norway, served eight 
years in the engineers with credit to himself as an officer in that depart- 
ment, but resigned and emigrated with his family to this country in 1853, 
found his way to, and was one of the first settlers in, the town of Bloom- 
er, Chippewa county, in 1857, and encountered all the hardships and 
privations incident to all who removed to that remote c:)rner during that 
terrible winter of '56-57. Called to mourn the loss by death of the 
mother of his children in 1861, he made such provision for them as he 
could, and immediately tendered his services to the government, and re- 
ceiving a captain's recruiting commission from Governor Randall, he set 
himself to work and enlisted thirty-two good men for Co. H, Fifteenth 
Regiment, whom he took to Camp Randall, where, at the organization 
of the company, he was defeated by two votes for the captaincy. 

But nothing daunted, he shouldered his rifle and served seventeen 
months in the ranks, until the battle of Stone River, when, for meritor- 
ious conduct, he was promoted to the position of First Lieutenant in 
Co. B, same regiment, and the next day appointed Topographical Engi- 
neer in the First Brigade, Second Division, Army of the Cumberland, 
and served in that capacity with the entire satisfaction of his superiors 
through all the subsequent campaigns of that veteran army ; was in all 
its hard-fought battles until the 13th day of March, 1864, when, while 
making a military survey, and separated from the main army, he was 
taken prisoner, and thenceforth was subjected to all the horrors and suf- 
ferings that characterized the treatment of Union prisoners throughout 
the South, until relieved by the victorious Union arms in 1865. His 
sketch of the battle of Stone River, scenes of life in Southern prisons, 
and map of Chippewa county are his best published works of art. He 
is one of the one hundred and forty-four, out of one thousand and three 
men who made up the roster of the Fifteenth Regiment when it left Mad- 
ison, who returned from that fearful struggle into which so many of our 
adopted fellow-citizens entered to save the nation's life. On hearing of his 



120 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

father's capture, his oldest son, Anthony, immediately enlisted and served 
in the army of the Potomac until the end of the war. The family are 
now residing at the city of Chippewa Falls. 

SIXTEENTH IlEGIMENT. * 

Two companies were recruited in this valley for this regiment, the first 
company (Gr) at Eau Claire, and called the Chippewa Valley Guards, in 
November and December, 1861, under the direction of Captain John R. 
Wheeler ; the other was consolidated with Co. I, and Co. H was recruit- 
ed at the same place in November and December of the same year. 

The regimental organization was effected under the direction of Col. 
Benjamin Allen, of North Pepin, and on the 21st day of January, 1862, 
\tas mustered into the U. S. service at Camp Randall, and after a few 
weeks drill left the State for active service, and reached St. Louis on 
14th of March, and Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, on the 20th ; were 
assigned to picket duty on the 5th of April following, and at day])reak 
the next morning commenced the terrible battle of Shiloh, with our raw 
Sixteenth in the front ranks of the army, and during all that and the 
following day were constantly exposed to the enemy's fire, and sustained 
a loss of two hundred and forty-five men in killed and wounded. The 
regiment subsequently took part in the battle of Holly Springs and the 
second battle of Corinth, and soon after moved down the Mississippi from 
Memjjhis to Vicksburg, where, on the 5th of February, 1864, when three 
full companies from home, F, H. and K, joined them, and the veterans, 
having re-enlisted, were given a furlough home, and arrived in Madison 
on the 16th of March, 1864. Having re-organized and filled up its 
ranks, it was assigned to the First Brigade, Third Division, Seventeenth 
Army Corps, and left Cairo to join the forces of General Sherman in his 
Atlanta campaign. 

During tlie summer and fall of 1863, stops were taken by the general 
government for a draft in all the States, under the act of Congress, ap- 
proved March 6th, 1863, and under the call of the President for three 
hundred thousand men in October following, fourteen thousand nine hun- 
dred and thirty-five was the quota required from this State, but as the 
act contained the commutation clause, the result was that the government 
obtained eight hundred and eighty drafted men and substitutes, and 
$1,528,300 from five thousand and eighty persons who paid money rather 
than enlist. 

The government soon saw the error, but to retrieve the damage result- 
ing from so unwise a provision was no easy matter, as nothing could more 
effectually abate the enthusiasm and patriotic ardor of the people than 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 121 

this commutation of three hundred dollars for a soldier. In some local- 
ities, great sacrifices had been made to secure volunteers, for which no 
credit was given, and towns and villages already thrice decimated were 
called upon for the same number of recruits, in proportion to the original 
number of men able to bear arms, as districts that had done nothing, 
causing a great deal of dissatisfaction. Then, too, the poor man unable 
to pay the three hundred dollars, felt that great injustice was done him ; 
and, however patriotic he might feel, he could not easily reconcile him- 
self to the idea that his life must be pitted against three hundred dollars. 
Then, too, the term "conscript" soon became to be regarded as one of 
opprobrium, by many, and much prejudice existed, not so much against 
the service, as the manner of entering it. 

Before this period, in the fall of 1862, John Klatt, formerly the ferry- 
man at Chippewa Falls, who had enlisted with Lieut. Richardson, finding 
himself unable to do duty as a private, on account of physical disability, 
returned home, and having been educated as a soldier in Grcrmany, his 
native land, determined to raise a company, which was assigned as Co. 
K, to the Thirtieth Regiment, and he was elected Captain. The regi- 
ment was ofl&cered as follows : Daniel J. Dill, Colonel ; Edward M. 
Bartlett, of Durand, Lieutenant Colonel ; Theodore C. Spencer, of Eau 
Claire, Adjutant ; Edwin 0. Baker, of Luna, Assistant Surgeon, Na- 
poleon C. Grreer was another one of its captains. This company was 
raised in Eau Claire county, with Charles Buckman, of Augusta, First 
Lieutenant. 

This regiment, it will be remembered, was sent to chastise the Indians 
on our northwestern frontier. Rather an inglorious, but necessary, fa- 
tiguing, and hazardous campaign, attended with contant alarms and great 
hardships, and the boys were glad when they were ordered to report at 
Louisville, Ky., though still called to wage war against a contemptible 
and treacherous foe, for the guerrillas of the South were little less bar- 
barous, and even more perfiduous, than the [untamed red-skins of the 
wilderness. 

It was immediately succeeding the depressed and unfavorable state of 
public feeling occasioned by the failure of the draft in October and No- 
vember, 1863, as before related, that Captain John R. Wheeler, of Co. 
G, Sixteenth Regiment, returned to Eau Claire, to recruit its depleted 
ranks. Recruiting sergeants from all the companies previously organized 
in the valley, were also here, and it was necssary that the most active 
operations should go forward to obtain volunteers and avoid another im- 
pending draft. War meetings were called in every locality, and promi- 



122 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

nent citizens, with few exceptions, came forward with substantial aid for 
the families of married men who enlisted, while county and town boards 
gave assurance that no soldier's family should be neglected. 

R. F. Wilson, chairman of the county board of Eau Claire county, at 
a public meeting, gave a positive assurance that he would attend person- 
ally to the wants of every soldier's family in the county. The clergy- 
men of almost every religious denomination put forth extraordinary ef- 
forts at the various meetings called for that purpose, to arouse the patri- 
otism of the people and procure enlistments, and the wonted enthusiasm 
was once more awakened. With such demonstrations. Captain Wheeler's- 
company was soon filled up, and another, under the leadership of D. C. 
Whipple, who resigned the office of Sheriff that he might serve his coun- 
try better in the field, was at the close of the year ready to report. The 
weather was terrible cold, and on their way to Sparta the men suffered 
intensely. The new company here elected their officers : D. C. Whipple, 
Captain ; J. T. Tinker, First, and M. Grover, Second Lieutenant, and 
were mustered into the U. S. service December 31st, 1S63, and soon 
moved to Camp Randall, uniformed, and drilled until February 26th,. 
1864, when, the regiment being complete, they were ordered South. Just 
before starting the men raised money and presented Captain Whipple a 
fine sword. Orderly Allen, afterwards Lientenant, has kindly furnished 
an account of what the company experienced and accomplishe d from this 
time forward. He says : 

"From the cold snows of the North to the balmy skies and peach blos- 
soms of Vicksburg, was a pleasant change. After doing picket duty at 
Black River bridge for a month we were ordered back to Vicksburg, 
from thence north on transports up the river, passing Fort Pillow a few 
hours after the massacre by Forrest. Company H, and two other com- 
panies, W3re landed at Columbus to assist the colored troops in defending 
the fort against an attack momentarily expected from that chivalrous 
general, which, however, he failed to make. 

"After two weeks of hard duty, we joined the command at Cairo, 
then preparing to join Sherman's army in Northern Geoi'gia. From Cairo 
to Clifton, Tennessee, on transports, and thence by forced marches, three 
hundred miles across that State, Alabama, and Georgia taking position 
on the left of the grand army, before Kenesaw Mountain, June 10th, 
1874. We suff"ered terribly during this march, and many gave out by 
the way, among whom were Lieutenants Grover and Tinker, who went 
to the hospital. 

"From this time to the 10th of September, three months, we were con- 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 123^ 

stantly under arms, marching, skirmishing, and fighting, our first exploits 
being in the battles about Kenesaw, where we lost several men ; then 
hotly pursuing the rebels night and day, until they took refuge in their 
trenches before Atlanta. 

"We lay on our arms on the night of the 20th of July, the enemy 
strongly fortified in front, and just at break of day we were ordered to 
the charge. Grave doubts and fears were expressed, as there were so 
many new recruits in the regiment, whether it would not be better to put 
an old and tried regiment in our place, but after a short consultation it 
was decided to keep us where we were, for if the charge was made, the 
older soldiers who were supporting them would have no confidence in 
them, and they would lose all confidence in themselves. The result 
showed the wisdom of the conclusion. It was a trying moment when 
Col. Fairchild shouted the order, 'Fix bayonets, foi'ward !' Out of the 
timber, down a ravine, up and across a field, over their works, driving 
out Hardee's veteran's and taking some prisoners, was but the work of a 
moment. Lieut. Col. Reynolds coming quickly up, said to the new men, 
'You are all veterans now, boys. ' 

"The General commanding the brigade sent word to General Blair, 
saying, 'The Wisconsin boys did nobly,' but it was praise dearly earned. 
Colonel Fairchild, Lieutenant Colonel Reynolds, Captain John Wheeler, 
and many other officers wounded, but fortunately none killed. Co. H 
lost two killed and seven wounded. Captain Whipple particularly dis- 
tinguished himself in this action, and a somewhat laughable incident oc- 
curred during the charge. So great was the excitement but little atten- 
tion was paid to his efi'orts to keep the men in line with the colors, but 
finally becoming terribly in earnest, and shouting above the roar and din 
of battle, he sang out, 'If you don't know what line on the colors means,, 
keep your eyes on that flag.' We held the works all day under fire, and 
strengthened them at night ; but about noon the next day the enemy 
burst on our left, and was crushing that part of our army like an egg- 
shell, coming boldly on until they reached the works held by the Twelfth 
and Sixteenth Wisconsin, who repulsed them in six successive terrible 
charges, first in front, then in rear, and changing sides of their works as 
many times. Captain Whipple showed himslf the same hero here as the 
day before, but the strain was too much ; constant fatigue and anxiety, 
and the suffering from his wound, sent him to the ambulance, and Or- 
derly Sergeant Allen took command, there being no commissioned officer 
with the company. Being ordered to another part of the field by a forced 
march, Captain Whipple again joined us and assisted in repulsing several 



124 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

charges, but was soon obliged to go to field hospital, and E. W. Allen, 
just commissioned, took command. 

"The final battles of Jonesborough and Lovejoy's Station closed the 
campaign, and with light hearts we spread our tents in Atlanta, Septem- 
ber 10th, 1864. Our company was reduced from ninety to twenty mus- 
kets, so severe had been the work. Here we received aquantity of good 
things, pickles, berries, condensed milk, etc., from kind friends in Eau 
Claire, for which, if ever men felt grateful, we did. But we did not rest 
long. Hood had gone north and was eating our crackers, so we were af- 
ter him again, and for five days and nights we chased him over 
mountains, rivers, and valleys, and then were ordered back to Atlanta 
again, where, for the first time in eight months, we received our pay, 
and voted for President, thirty-four for Lincoln and two for McClellan, 
That was the kind of men that composed Co. H." Writing of this cam- 
paign, Captain Whipple says : "Allow me to say a word for Lieutenant 
Allen, the youngest officer in the regiment. When commissioned, he took 
his place beside the older officers, performing his duty faithfully and 
bravely, and never missed a day to the close of the war." "On the 14th 
of November, we started with Sherman on his grand march to the sea, 
and a month of constant marching brought us to the gates of Savannah, 
where, after a short resistance, we marched, flags flying, into the city. 
Starting again, we took Pocotaligo, out on the Charleston railroad, which 
fell in consequence, and next, our company was at the burning of Co- 
lumbia, then Cheraw, Fayetteville, Bentonville, and Groldsborough were 
taken, and, after a few days rest, waiting for our absent men to come up. 
a forced march brought us to Raleigh. 

"When Captain Whipple, who had been sent home sick, rejoined us, 
how glad we were to see him ! Here the war virtually closed. The 
fighting was over, but we were a long way from home, but marching was 
easy now, for every day brought us nearer our loved ones there. On to 
Petersburg, Eichmond, and Washington, where, on the 23d of May, we 
took part in that grandest pageant ever seen in America, the grand re- 
view ; Mrs. Sherman throwing bouquets at our tattered and worn colors. 
We were soon transferred to Louisville, Ky., where, on the 4th day of 
July, 1865, General Sherman took a final farewell of us, and a few days 
after we were mustered out, sent to Madison, received our final pay and 
discharge on August 21st, 1865, and with light hearts started for home, 
never more, it is to be hoped, to be called to take up arms for our be- 
loved country against internal foes.'' 

I have given the foregoing almost verbatim, partly because so few have 



CUIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 125 

taken pains to send me their war experience on paper, and because it is a 
concise narration of one of the most remarkable campaigns in the history 
of the world. 

To close this, how happy I am to introduce another welcome communi- 
cation, from the facile pen of the Kev. Dr. Alfred Brunson, whose in- 
terest not only in the history of the State, but in all that pertains to the 
honor and welfare of our country, is unabated, though his hand trembles 
with age as he traces patriotic thoughts on paper. 

Prairie du Chien, Nov. 28th, 1874. ^. 
Thos. E. Randall, Esq., 

Dear Sir — I read your numbers on history, etc., with deep interest. 
The twenty-ninth number is nov7 at hand, but one thing about the Eagle, 
and the good service he rendered his country, you must have overlooked. 
You remember the Sanitary Fair got up in Chicago, towards the close of 
the rebellion, for the benefit of the sick and wounded. The Eagle, at 
the time, had a national fame, and to aid in raising funds upon that oc- 
casion, a picture of the Eagle was struck ofi" by millions and sold for ten 
cents a piece, resulting in the receipt of over $10,000, which was ap- 
plied to the objects of the Fair. By this means the Eagle contributed 
to the relief of sixteen thousand or more sick and wounded soldiers ; 
more, perhaps, than any one man did, though it took benevolent patriots 
to make him so. When the Fair was gotten up, a friend of mine wrote 
to me from the State of New York, for one of Old Abe's pictures.| How 
many thousands of others did so to their friends, I know not, but^the in- 
cident shows the national fame of the Eagle. 

Another incident : When that Eagle company was mustered into the 
service, and the regiment started for the front, an editor, speaking of it, 
alluded specially to the company that came from the pinery on the Chip- 
pewa, and said, "they are accustomed to camp life, are hardy, can endure 
the hardships of the war, and from habit can sleep on a saw log, if 
necessary." Respectfully yours, 

Alfred Brunson. 



126 CHIPPEWA VALLEY UISTORY. 

CHxVPTER XXXI. 

TWENTY-FIFTU IlEGIMEXT. 

Of all the regiments sent to the field from this State during the war, 
perhaps none did more hard fighting, or was more constantly in motion, 
than the Twenty-fifth Infantry. Recruited mainly in the river counties, 
between Lake Pepin and La Crosse, and organizing at Camp Solamon, 
in that city, on the 4th day of September, 1862, under the direction of 
^ol. Milton Montgomery and Lieut. Col. J. M. Rusk. Its first opera- 
tions were against the Indians in Minnesota. Co. G of this regiment 
was recruited in this valley by Virus AY. Dorwin, afterwards elected its 
Captain, assisted by the patriotic citizens of Durand and vicinity, and 
its decimated ranks were frerjuently refilled from the same locality. Like 
the Eagle regiment, the Twenty-fifth was always in motion, and whether 
fighting Indians in Minnesota or guerrillas in Missouri, Arkansas, Ten- 
nessee, or Mississippi, or leading the vanguard at the siege and capture 
of Vicksburg, could always be counted on as a thorougly disciplined and 
reliable regiment ; and when Sherman's grand army was organized for 
the Atlanta campaign, it shared in almost every one of the many hard- 
fought battles which led to the reduction of that stronghold and the 
march to the sea. The fame and efficiency of this regiment is due, no 
doubt, in some measure, to the able officers who commanded it ; but no 
less so to the indomitable bravery of the fourteen hundred and forty-four 
loyal men composing its rank and file. 

Three other companies were organized in this valley, all having their 
headquarters at Eau Claire. The first company, K, Thirty-sixth Regi- 
ment, was recruited under the call of the President for five hundred 
thousand men, in February and March, 1864, through the eS"orts of Cap- 
tain Warren Graves, and Lieutenants E. A. Galloway and Joseph R, 
Ellis, all of Pleasant Valley, in this county, and nearly all the men were 
from the country towns in Eau Claire, Chippewa, and Dunn counties. It 
was a brave and hardy company of men, but the regiment was the most 
unfortunate of any that left this State, and of the eighty-eight men in 
Captain Graves' company, only one returned unscathed. W. "W. Cran- 
dall, of La Fayette, Chippewa county, was neither sick, wounded, nor 
taken prisoner, while every other man in the company was either killed, 
wounded, taken prisoner, or sent to hospital. Captain Graves was 
wounded, sent to hospital, and died. Lieutenant Galloway was killed 
while leading an assault on the enemy's works. Many were taken pris- 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 127 

oners in the deep railroad cut south of Petersburg, and suffered horrors 
a thousand times worse than death, in rebel prisons, and many painful 
■circumstances grew out of the long suspense and almost hopeless uncer- 
tainty as to their fate. 

One instance among many I will relate. Patrick O'Donohue, of 
Pleasant Valley, in this county, enlisted in this company, leaving a wife 
and a numerous and interesting family of children, mostly daughters. 
At the battle of Ream's Station, Va., on the 25th day of August, 1864, 
while in the deep railroad cut, he was taken prisoner but reported as 
killed, which painful news soon reached his family, and for many months 
he was mourned as dead, but in time vague rumors of his imprisonment 
in a Southern prison pen came, causing hope, fear, dread, and anxious 
solicitude to alternate in the fond hearts of his loved ones at home. Winter 
succeeded autumn, and still no positive tidings ; nothing but dreary, deso- 
late uncertainty and suspense, while he suffered not alone the terrible hun- 
ger and privations of Salisbury and Andersonville, but the ever-harrowing 
thought that all his efforts to communicate with his loved ones at home 
were unavailing. But this is only one of many thousand cases that oc- 
curred during the war, and reaching the loyal people in every hamlet and 
in the remotest corners of our severely-tried country. 

To close this account of the Thirty-sixth, I will extract a few para- 
graphs from a letter addressed to His Excellency, Governor James T. 
Lewis, by the brigade commander, dated Nov. 1st, 1865, which shows 
■what material the regiment was composed of. 

"As your Excellency knows, this regiment came here new. They 
were rushed into the breach untried, in a campaign which has been 
fiercer and more bloody than Napoleon's. 

"The Thirty-sixth made its debut in a battle of which the London 
Times says that England could not lose one-tenth the number. 

"On reaching the field, the Thirty-sixth took up their position as 
steadily as the oldest, and in all operations in mass were undistinguisha- 
ble for compactness and celerity from the best troops. * * * 
I determined to take the position across Hatcher's Run. The order to 
charge had just been given, when the enemy opened heavily on my right 
and rear, and advanced upon my main line in heavy masses. His forces 
enclosed three sides, and with worse troops the situation would have been 
menacing, and to crown all, a heavy body of rebels were thrown upon 
my rear (the fourth side). A swift face by the rear rank and wheeling, 
charged by the New Jersey brigade, cleared my right flank, but from the 
threatening bo ly in my rear it remained for the Thirty-sixth Wisconsin 



128 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

to relieve me. Captain Fisk threw them into line and dashed ofiF the en- 
emy. It was a short fight : that rebel brigade instantaneously crumbled 
and was destroyed, being mostly captured, to a number, with army colors 
and officers, three times greater than the Thirty-sixth. Having cleaned 
my rear, the regiment then returned to its place in line, and behaved 
equally well until their return to canap. 

T. W. Egan, 
Brigade Commander." 

In February, 1865, Professor Shadrach Hall, of the Methodist Semi- 
nary, West Eau Claire, received a recruiting commission, and, aided by 
the citizens and the powerful eloquence of the clergymen of Eau Claire, 
he enlisted a company, which was assigned to the Fifth Wisconsin as a 
body of new recruits at the time of its organization, and participated in 
almost every battle which immediately led to the fall of Richmond and 
the surrender of Lee's army, and when the charge was sounded for the 
assault on the rebel lines near Petersburg, on the 2d of April, 1865, the 
Fifth occupied the extreme front, and its colors were the first planted on 
the enemy's works. 

And the last company organized in the valley was recruited by H. M. 
Stocking, of the Free Press, which was assigned to the Forty-eighth 
Regiment. Its scene of operations was first Missouri, and then the In- 
dian Plains of Kansas and Colorado ; replete with hardships, but the 
fighting was over. Nevertheless, this regiment was retained in the field 
until the 9th of December, 1.S65, and a portion until the following 
March. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Contemplating a chapter made up of stirring incidents and accidents in 
velation to the war and the action taken by our citizens and soldiers in it, 
md with that view having accumulated quite a number of items, which 
rcre carefully laid away for the proper occasion, and among them several 
Jettcrs from valued correspondents who have taken pains to furnish infor- 
mation for this work, but which in the changes and derangements inci- 
dent to the season, got mislaid and cannot be found. I mention this as 
an apology to those who have so kindly lent their aid to assist me. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 129 

Amongst them was one, the loss of which 1 very much regret, giving an 
account of two friends who enlisted from the neighborhood of Durand, 
to fill up the depleted ranks of one of our brave regiments in the field, 
and of the bravery and self-sacrifice made by one to shield his friend . 
from danger. How I regret that I cannot give the name of so gallant a 
soldier and comrade so generous ! 

It was in one of those fierce and terrible onsets, such as the chivalry 
made in the first part of the rebellion, when our boys were told to lie 
down and await the shock, that our two friends lay partly sheltered from 
the hail by a small log or stick, the one nearest, however, being exposed 
above and below, when, quick as thought, the one in the rear climbed 
over his fellow and placed himself in his friend's exposed position. 

To the inquiry why he thus coveted a position so dangerous, he re- 
plied : "You have a young wife and many dear friends to mourn your 
loss, and to whom your life is valuable, but there is not a soul to mourn 
my death, no wife or children, parents, brothers, or sisters. Alone in 
the world, what is my life, compared with yours? Let me shield you 
with my body, that your life may be spared to the loved ones at home, 
and if one of us must die, let it be me." Pythias pleaded for the privi- 
lege of dying instead of his friend Damon, but here was a man who 
forced himself between his friend and a hail-storm of bullets ! 

The accounts thus far given of troops furnished from this valley, have 
taken cognizance only of organized bodies ; from files of the Eau Claire 
Free Press, kindly furnished me by the Hon. Gi-. E. Porter, covering the 
period of his editorship, and coming down to the spring of 1864, I am 
enabled to note the action and enlistment of several smaller and unor- 
ganized companies, and to cull from its columns many interesting events 
and circumstances connected with the war. 

The following quotations are made with little regard to order and ar- 
rangement, as expressing the state of the public mind, and the feeling 
developed by the incipient and subsequent stages of the war. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 19tII, THE WAR BEGAN. 

The terrible fact now stares us full in the face, lovers of the Union must 
meet the sudden though unexpected responsibilities which devolve upon 
them. This is no time for crimination or recrimination. Every Union- 
loving heart will swell with emotion as it contemplates the unutterable 
baseness and dishonor of those who have inaugurated civil war, and we 
greatly mistake the tone and temper of all good citizens, South as well 
as North, if they do not firmly resolve to aid when duty calls, in executing 



130 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

a tctrible retribution upon the rebels. Let the watchword be, "The 
Union must and shall be preserved." 

THE WAE FEELING IN EAU CLAIRE. 

There is no mistaking the deep and intense feeling that pervades all 
classes of our citizens in view of the exciting news from the South — the 
bombardment of Fort Sumpter. 

The Union feeling is unmistakable everywhere, a^^d we believe that 
when duty calls, this and adjoining counties will furnish as many strong 
arms and brave hearts as would the same number of inhabitants else- 
where. 

STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 

Dispatches from all parts of the country informs us that the hearts of 
the people are with the government. Impromptu meetings are held ev- 
erywhere, and the united voice of the North cries out for vengeance. 
There are but two parties now — patriot or traitor. 

The bombardment of Fort Sumpter and its surrender is given in this 
number of the Free Press, also the call of President Lincoln for seventy- 
five thousand men, and this : 

•'TheCharleston (S. C.) Mercury boasts that 'nearly all the United 
States forts in the South have fallen.' Yes, and, we are sorry to say, like 
the poor man in the Bible, they have fallen among thieves. — [Louisville 
Journal." 

A stirring call for an old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration follows, 
with a hope that the slumbering fires of patriotism may be kindled in 
this valley. 

APRIL 26tH, 1861, PATRIOTS AROUSE. 

There will be a meeting of the patriotic citizens of Eau Claire and vi- 
cinity, at Reed's Hall, on Monday evening, 29th inst., to get up a com- 
pany to go and fight the battles of our country, under the call of the 
Governor for men to fill Wisconsin's quota in the armies of the Republic. 
Speaking and singing may be expected. 

With one exception, this was the first war meeting in this valley, and 
in the local columns of the same date is "Throe cheers for John Taylor," 
who had just returned from Milwaukee resolved to enlist a company for 
the First Regiment, and the editor adds, "Captain Taylor is just the 
man to do it." 

The meeting came oflf according to call, N. B. Boyden, Chairman, J. 
G. Callahan, Secretary, and was addressed by Messrs. Barnes, Meggett, 
Davis, Bartlett, Barrett, vVoodworth, Taylor, Porter, Whipple, Wilson, 



CniPPKWA VALLEY HISTORY. 131 

Stillman, and McNair Two bands discoursed martial music. Thea 
«come the names of sixty-ono men wao enrolled themselves as soldiers, 
amongst which I find the names of A. S. Bostwiek, A. C. Ellis, Robert 
Lackey, John E. Stillman, J. D. McCauley, W. P. Bartlett, honored 
names still amongst us, but in the roU are many who, although the com- 
pany as an organized body never left the valley, could not rest until — 
bearing their own expenses to the seat of war — they had joined them- 
selves to the army of freedom and laid down their lives in fighting its 
battles. 

War, too, has its poetic side, and here is a dignified specimen from the 
■other side, found in the columns of the New Orleans Delta ; 

Let Lincoln send his forces here ! 

We'll lick them like blue blazes, 
And send them yelping back where 

They sing their nigger praises. 

We whaled the hungry cussea out 

At Charleston like the dickens ; 
And not content with Sumpt-erous fare, 

They sha'n't e'en have the Pickens. 

How like the White League bombast of to-day this sounds ! 

The company before referred to organized on the 10th of May, and 
• chose for its officers Captain John Taylor, First Lieutenant A. S. Bost- 
wiek, and Orderly Sergeant A. G. Ellis. 

It took the name of "Eau Claire Badgers." A noble looking body of 
men, says the Free Press, but just look for a moment at the next item, 
taken from the Mobile Advertiser, while speaking of Union soldiers : 
"Such men as marched through Baltimore, white slaves, peddling wretch- 
es, small change knaves, levied by Lincoln for the honor of being slaught- 
ered by gentlemen." Vainglorious Southern Chivalry, how art thou 
faUen ! 

No provision having been made by the government for the sustenance 
or transportation of the Badgers, after an ineffectual attempt to support 
them by private contribution, they were disbanded, some returning to 
their homes, and others, as before stated, paying their own way, Captain 
Taylor among them. 

AUGUST 22d, I8G1. — FROM THE I.IADISON PATRIOT. 

Miss Eliza T. Wilson is the "Vivandiere" of our Wisconsin Fifth, 

She is a fine-appearing, intelligent young lady, daughter of Hon. Wm. 

Wilson, of Menomonie, Dunn county, formerly of the State Senate. 

* * * It is expected of her to assuage the thirst of the 

.dying and wounded on the field of battle, and she is regarded as a sort 



132 CHIPPEWA TALLBY HISTORY. 

of goardian angel of the regiment. All honor to the vivandiere of the 
Fifth. 

SKPTEMBEE 12tH, 1861. 

The Eau Claire Badgers (under the new organization, afterwards 
called the Eau Claire Eagles) took their departure from this place for 
Madison, preparatory to a campaign in Secessia, last Friday morning, on 
board the steamer Stella Whipple. 

This was Captain Perkin's company, with the bird that gave the name 
Eagle Regiment to the Eighth Wisconsin ; the second organized compa- 
ny that left this valley. At West Eau Claire, in response to their call 
just before the boat drew in her plank, A. Meggett, Esq., on behalf of 
the citizens, bade them a formal and aflPecting farewell. 

CUXPPEWA FALLS ITEMS. A PATRIOTIC FAMILY. 

We learn that S. S, McCann, who volunteered for the war a few days 
ago, has two sons and three sons-in-law in our country's service. Mrs. 
McCann, the 'Squire's lady, says they have one son left, and if the gov- 
ernment makes another call for volunteers, he must go also. Such patri- 
otism should be remembered. 

OCTOBER 3d, 1861. MORE MEN FROM CHIPPEWA COUNTY. 

Lieutenant Luxton passed through this place from Chippewa Falls, on- 
Friday last, with twenty athletic fellows to join the Milwaukee Tiger- 
Rifles. Among them we noticed that bold pioneer, Stephen S. McCann. 
Mr. McCann has been in actual service; havine served through the Black 
Hawk war, and came out with an honorable discharge. He is a man of 
undoubted pluck and patriotism, and although he has passed the noon of 
Kfe, he could not turn a deaf ear to his country's call for "more men." 

NOVEMBER 28th, 1861. — THE EAU CLAIRE BANGERS. 

Captain Sherman having enlisted forty men at Patch's Grove, bis com- 
pany is now accepted in Col. Washburn's regiment of cavalry, and will 
proceed at once to winter quarters at Milwaukee. 

I should like to relate some of the affecting and also comical incidents 
of Captain Sherman's war experience, and that of his command, as told 
by himself, but will first mention a^scene and circumstance in which he 
was an actor at which I was present. 

It was in July of the year following (1862) that the Captain came 
home on a short furlough. To recreate and recover his health, he visited 
several places in the country around about Eau Claire, and amongst oth- 
ers a Sabbath-school picnic in the town of La Fayette. The young and- 



CHIPPBTTA VALLEY HISTOEY. 13S 

•anxious wives and many other friends of several members of his company 
were present and impatient to hear from their dear ones he had left down 
in Arkansas. In response to urgent calls, he commenced a little speech 
with a view, apparently, of setting forth the sufferings and wants of our 
brave boys in that malarious climate, and the horrors of Southern prisons 
which some of his company had experienced, but, soldier as he was and 
accustomed to affecting scenes and trying circumstances, he broke down, 
almost at the start, and burst into tears. So true it is that the bravest 
men are the most tender and sympathetic. 

DECEMBER 19tH, 1861.— THE CHIPPEWA GUARDS TO DEPART EOR THE 

WAR. 

This was Captain Wheeler's company, to whom the ladies of Eau 
Claire presented a beautiful flag, a grand ball being given at Keed's Hall, 
the Guards being formed in line by Sergeant M. E. O'Connell. Hon! 
H. W. Barnes made the presentation on behalf of the ladies in a most 
beautiful and patriotic speech, responded to for the Company by Gr. E. 
Porter, in the most touching and eloquent terms. Room for only a sen- 
tence or two of each of these addresses can be spared here. Mr. Barnes 
said: 

"Bear in mind that this flag is entrusted to you as citizens and soldiers 
of Wisconsin. Let this prove to you how dear to the female heart is 
liberty— how sacred to her is the cause K^hich you go forth to sustain." 

In reply Mr. Porter said: "I can assure the fair donors, in behalf of 
these noble men, that while they have an arm to strike, no stain of dis- 
honor shall ever pollute the fair folds of that beautiful flag." 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



PEPIN COUNTY. 



The reader has most likely observed that this curiously shaped piece 
or parcel of the territory of this State, embracing the delta of the Chip- 
pewa and a strip extending along its southeastern bank for thirty miles 
and along the northern shore of Lake Pepin, about the same distance, 
has received little attention. 



134 CHIPtEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

. From 1856 to 1857, it was included in the county of Dunn, from* 
which it was taken, and organized by act of the Legislature, approved' 
February 25, 1858. Being destitute of pine timber which was the ob- 
ject of the early settlers in this valley, no attention was paid to these- 
lands for many years after the mills were erected in the lumber region on 
the several branches of the river, and at the Nails. 

The first house erected in the county, was built by John McKane in 
1850 on the lake shore a mile and a half above the present village of 
North Pepin. He was a Mississippi raft pilot, not very circumspect in 
his morals, a great spendthrift and gambler, but having picked up a 
woman somewhere along the river to share his fortunes, an industrious 
and frugal housekeeper and manager, the two opened quite a farm and se. 
cured a considerable competence. 

W. B. Newcomb another river pilot, was the next settler, who in 
company with John O'Conor and Benjamin Allen Esq., laid off the town 
or village of North Pepin in 1854. It was supposed by many at tha 
time that a flourishing city, would grow up at some point near the mouth 
of so large a river as the Chippewa and the proprietors of this village 
plot counted much upon it as the embryo city. Great efforts were also 
put forth to secure the trade and open up the country around to settle- 
ment and civilization. In connection with H. S. Allen & Co., a wagon: 
road was opened to the Falls of the Chippewa and a stage line and mail 
route, were soon established. Hotels and business houses were soon 
opened ; a State bank went into operation under the free banking law 
and the place only lacked a well settled and flourishing country, back of 
it to make it prosperous. 

In 1857 U. B. Shaver started a newspaper there called the Pepin 
County Independent, and the year following. North Pepin became the 
county seat for Pepin county. Up to this time, little had been done in 
the way of filling up the country around with farmers, although much of 
the country was most excellent land for agricultural purposses. Shaver 
continued the Independent two years but removed to Wabasha soon after 
and the County was without an organ for some time. 

In 1863 Myran Shaw published the Mirror which was succeeded by 
the Lean AVolf and that by the Durand Times. 

Two brothers by the name of His, William and Samuel B., had set- 
tled near the trail leading up the Chippewa before the village of North 
Pepin was laid out, which comprised most of the country tributary to 
its business, but the energy and public spirit displayed by the proprietors 
in laying out and working the roads in different directions, soon had the 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 135 

effect to settle the country, and their prospect seemed hopeful. The 
landing for steamboats however was difficult in low water ; the Lake be- 
ing very shallow for a considerable distance from the bank, which was a 
serious drawback. 

But other and still more potent causes were operating to defeat the- 
hopes of this Lake Shore village. The country on the south side of the 
Chippewa was filling up with industrious and enterprising men, and it 
was soon ascertained that a shorter route could be opened between the 
Falls, Eau Claire, and the Mississippi on that side. Steamboats, too, 
of lighter draft were used to navigate the Chippewa, which in a great 
measure relieved the Falls and Pepin stage of any business. 

A series of low water seasons had induced Perry Curtis and his asso- 
ciates to believe that the bottom lands of the Chippewa did not overflow, 
and in 1855 they laid out a town or village plat near the mouth of Bear 
Creek, three or four miles above the present village of Durand. A hotel, 
a store or two, and several dwellings wer9 erected, but the long continued 
high water of the two succeeding years dispelled their hopes, the town 
site being under water for several months each year, and the project of 
building up a town there was forever abandoned. 

But the distance from Eau Claire to the Mississippi was too long, and 
the demand for a town at some intermediate puint on the south side of the 
Chippewa was too apparent to be long neglected. 

Miles D. Prindle, a young man from the Old Pine State, came up the 
river in 1856, and after looking the ground over, secured the title to the 
land on which the village of Durand now stands, and laid out a part of 
the plat, 

" Give me also springs of water" was the request of a Hebrew bride 
as she received her marriage portion, which embraced a south land do- 
main ; but Mr. Prindle says his town site was made up of just such mar- 
riage portions as Acsah coveted. It was upper and nether springs every- 
where, but it had another advantage ; no Chippewa flood would ever 
overflow it. Great obstacles were to be overcome in order to make his 
undertaking successful. A ferry across the Chij^pewa must be established; 
a steam saw mill to supply the wants of the surrounding country was es- 
sential, while roads extending in all directions were an indispensible neces- 
sity, which the young village proprietor must open to secure the country 
trade. 

All this, and much more, was undertaken and accomplished by t he en- 
terprising proprietor and his associates, W. F. Prindle, George Ell sworth, 
and W. E. Hays, during those terrible years of failure and disappoint- 



136 CHIPPBWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

ment which followed the bursting of the California gold bubble of 1857. 
As the agricultural resources of the country became developed, Durand 
was found to be the nearest market to a large wheat growing country and 
quite a flourishing business was done in shipping that cereal to eastera 
markets. A boat yard was started by one of its enterprising citizens, 
and several boats and barges adapted to the Chippewa trade were built 
there. It was not a place holding out great inducements for the invest- 
ment of capital, but by industry and economy the people of Durand have 
achieved reasonable success and surrounded themselves with a fair amount 
of the comforts and elegancies of life. In 1860 Durand laid claim to the 
county seat by virtue of a majority of the voters in the county and ob- 
tained leave to test the question at the polls which however was lost that 
year, but the next year the result was favorable to Durand, which was 
declared the legal county S6at by judicial decision, rendered at La Crossci 
in 186-5, at the termination of a law suit in which the case became in- 
volved. 

An elegant court house has since been erected, and tlie bitterness oc- 
casioned by the removal is fast disappearing. 

A commodious graded school house and an elegant M. E. Church 
building are among the evidences of religious and intellectual culture. 

Several other christian denominations have organizations in the village, 
among which is a live and growing society of Congregationalists, under 
the pastoral care of Rev. Mr. Kidder, heretofore mentioned in this work, 
whose labors in this Valley for the past twenty years have been identified 
with its highest religious and educational interests Having been mainly 
instrumental in establishing churches in Eau Claire, Augusta, Van Ville 
in Chippewa county, Mondovi in Buffalo, he is now settled at Durand, as 
zealous in the Master's cause as at any period of his long ministry. 

The manufacturing industries of the county are mostly located on Bear 
and Plum Creeks, on the former of which are u flouring mill, carding and 
woolen mill owned by Capt. V. W. Dorwiu. These are near Durand^ 
and on the former are flourishing mills for hard wood, flouring mills and 
various wooden ware manufactories. 

Its citizens being largely engaged in agriculture, Pepin county has had 
few criminal cases on its calendar. 

A most villainous outrage was perpetrated by a party of Sioux on the 
wife of one Bobert a German who built a cabin just below the present 
village of Durand several years before the country became settled. Hav- 
ing bound her husband, ten of the monsters violated her person before 
his eyes. Being a ivr^'ignev he knew not where to seek redress. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. ll|7 

One other a most appaling case of murder occurred in the year 1866. 
Ira B. Wheeler liring at a place on the north bank of the Chippewa 
river, known as Five Mile Bluffs, was murdered on the 24th of March, 
under circumstances that implicated his wife Margaret E. Wheeler and 
James E. Carter in the atrocious deed. They were immediately arrested 
but as the body had been concealed under the ice in the river and no posi- 
tive proof of his death, or the manner of it being adduced, they were 
discharged ; the parties continuing to reside as before, at the house of 
the missing man. 

On the 12th of May following, the body having been discovered with 
marks of violence about the hea«l, they were re arrested and committed 
for trial at the ensuing term. For greater safety they were taken to Eau 
Claire county, where she employed the legal talents of Hon. Alex. Meg- 
gett to defend her. Owing to some informality no grand jury was em- 
panelled in Pepin county at the next term, and the parties lay in jail un- 
til the following March, when they were arraigned, but on the affidavit of 
the District Attorney, the case was removed to Dunn county, thence to 
La Crosse on the affidavit of the defense. Their final trial and conviction 
was before Judge Flint at the May term in 1867. Under the manage- 
ment of the able counsel, it was hoped that a confession of guilt on the 
part of Carter would clear Mrs. Wheeler, but on the trial their mutual 
accusations clearly showed that both were present at the killing and par- 
ticipated in the murder, and that both assisted in putting the body under 
*he ice, and in concealing the evidence of their guilt. 

The efforts of the able counsel were then directed to extenuating clr" 
cumstances in favor of Mrs. Wheeler, with a view to lessen the time of 
her imprisonment. The virdlct of the jury, however, was murder in the 
first degree, and the sentence, " imprisonment in the penitentiary for 
life." Alleging that the removal of the case from Pepin to Dunn county 
on the application of the prosecution was unconstitutional and Illegal. She 
was remanded for a new trial on appeal to the Supreme Court, but failing 
to order her to be committed for safe keeping, Mr. Meggett obtained a 
writ of habeas corpus from court commissioner Hon. H. Clay Williams, 
under which Mrs. Wheeler was discharged, but immediately rearrested by 
the officers of Pepin county, from whom she managed to escape ; assisted* 
as is supposed, by an old lover who took her to parts unknown. The 
story of Strang and Mrs. Whipple over again. 

In September 1864 one Sloan, a resident of what is now the town of 
Seymour in Eau Claire county, was murdered in the village of Eau 
Clairj by John Stoeplar one of its citizens. He was immediately arrest- 



138 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

ed and held for trial, was ably defended by Horace W. Barnes and N. R 
Boyden Esq., but the evidence against him was conclusive and the prose- 
cution conducted by Mr. Meggett and W. P. Bartlett obtained a verdbt 
of guilty of manslaughter in the second degree and the sentence was for 
five years imprisonment in the penitentiary ; but before the expiration of 
the term he was commended by many influential citizens to executive 
clemency and two years of the term remitted. 

One other horrid murder was committed at the close of the year 1868 
in the town of Pleasant Valley Eau Claire county, John Hamilton drove- 
the tines of a pitchfork into the brain of a son of Wm. Laughman which 
caused his death. It was a most uncalled for and brutal assult upon a 
young, defenceless lad and received the universal execration of the com- 
munity. The perpetrator though defended by able counsel, Meggett and 
Barnes, is now suflfering the penalty of the fearful crime. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

In the foregoing chapter of this work, the reader has been made ac- 
quainted with all the principal business men and firms engaged in lumber 
operations, and the respective localities in this valley, together with many 
other individual improvements, and development of the country general- 
ly, do'vn to the commencement of the war. 

The recognized source of wealth and profit fur all these firms was the 
pine timber standing upon the lands drained by the several streams and 
their affluents, upon which their establishments were located. 

As each of these involved the necessity of placing piers and other ob- 
structions in the stream, it was necessary to obtain certain privileges,, 
either from the legislature or under the general charter law, in order that 
the placing and construction of such works miglit conform to legal re- 
strictions. 

Where two or more of these establishments were located on the same 
stream, as in the case of the main Chippewa, a conflict of interests soon 
became apparent, and bitter jealousies sprang up ; so that in addition to 
the long season of drouth, quite as disastrous in holding back the supply 
of logs as the destructive floods by which they were succeeded, and the 
numerous other natural obstacles encountered in all new enterprises in a 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 13^"" 

new country — the opposition of rival interests must be met or overcomfr 
at every s'iage of their advancement. 

Their true interests lay in mutual concessions, forbearance, and as- 
sistance, because annual freshets were carrying away the avails of their 
labor and enterprise, and furnishing to the mills along the Mississippi not 
only a foretaste of the advantages to be derived from the manufacture of 
our wealth of pine into lumber, but a plausable excuse for putting in 
works at Beef Slough to save and secure the logs, more or less of which 
went adrift every year, for want of a safe reservoir near the mills. 

Under a decree from the United States District Court for the District 
of Wisconsin, the vast property at the Falls, accumulated, or rather cre- 
ated, by the energy of H. S. Allen &Co. — proceedings inequity against 
the Chippewa Falls Lumbering Company having resulted in such decree 
— was sold at Milwaukee by the Marshal of said District in August, 1861^ 
An association of several of the plaintiffs bought the property and sub- 
sequently sold it to the lessees, as heretofore stated, Pound & Halbert,. 
who soon made their presence and power known not only in this valley, 
but throughout the State and the Northwest. The former lessee, Adin 
Randall, with the aid of French & Co., of West Eau Claire, erected a 
mill on the lower chute of Jim's Falls, with the usual dams, piers, booms, 
etc., which, with the mills on Yellow river at this time owned by Mason 
& Sons, and that on O'Neil's creek, operated by Lockhart, Manahan & 
Fair, constituted the mill or manufacturing intei-est above the Falls ; 
while below were Bussy & Taylor, Grravel Island, Dole, Ingram & Ken- 
nedy, Daniel Shaw & Co., Smith & Buffington, Mc Vicar Bros., and 
Stephen Marston, with their establisIiQients of varied extent and capaci- 
ty, all near Half Moon Lake, West Eau Claire. And the year follow- 
ing, 1862, Sherman Brothers commenced the erection of a mill at the 
Big Eddy, now known as the Eddy mill. And soon after, Charles 
Warner and his associates built the first mill piers, booms, etc., at Por- 
terville. 

The success of all lumbering operations up here depended at all times 
on the development and prosperity of the great agricultural regions to 
the south and west of us. Short crops and low prices for produce were 
as disastrous to the lumbermen as to the farmer. But there were other 
drawbacks to both these and all other industries throughout the West, 
one of which had always been the want of a siable, uniform currency, 
which, added to expensive transportation and inadequate markets, had 
retarded the settlement of the country, and crippled its industrial and 
commercial energies. 



140 CHIPPBWA VALLBT HISTORY. 

But now the war, and the necessities of the government growing out 
of it, had supplied both a market and a currency, sound, stable, uniform, 
and abundant, which gave an impulse to industry and the development of 
Western resources before unknown. 

The passage of the Homestead law about this time also stimulated em- 
igration, and capitalists saw at once that the pine lands in the Chippewa 
Land District, that had lain so long subject to entry, would now be a 
safe and lucrative investment, which, with the location of a large amount 
of Agricultural College scrip for our own and other States, soon absorbed 
vast areas of our pine land domain. From these demonstrations, it was 
very evident to the owners of these mills that the custom amongst them 
of exchanging logs, which had grown out of imperative necessity, and 
was in some respects very convenient, must soon be terminated ; and at 
all times equally apparent that storage capacity for more logs must be 
provided at some point on the river for the mutual convenience of all, or 
the business must prove a failure. 

Beyond all comparison the most eligible point on the river, a place 
seemingly fixed by nature for just such a reservoir, was the great basin 
above the Dalles and a little north of the village of Eau Claire. 

To accomplish this it would be necessary to erect a dam across the 
Chippewa river at the Dalles aforesaid, which should set the water back 
and flood the low lands in the basin, slack the current of the river, and 
secure storage and conveniences for handling all the logs that would come 
down in any one year. 

Such a dam would also create a vast water-power, and secure to the 
locality great manufacturing facilities. But before such work could be 
established, the river being a public highway, and its free navigation be- 
ing guaranteed by the treaty of cession and constitutional provision, a 
charter must be obtained from the legislature granting to the party the 
necessary privileges, and guarding the rights of the public. So urgent 
were the demands for such an improvement, and so great were the bene- 
fits expected to accrue to the people of Eau Claire, that every citizen 
came to regard it as of paramount local importance ; while the people of 
Chippewa Falls and the mill interest above that point could view the 
project only as destructive to the navigation of the river, and calculated 
to build up a rival village at the expense of the great interests involved 
above. 

Being in the same Assembly District until 186<), and T. C. Pound, of 
the firm of Pound & Halbert, being elected to represent the people in 
that body the two preceding years, it was not deemed expedient to agi- 



CHIPPEWA TALLET HISTORY. 141 

tate the subject prior to that time. But in that year, the re-organiza- 
tion of the State into Assembly Districts, placed the two villages in dif- 
ferent Districts, and the Hon. Fayette Allen, of Pepin county, was chosen 
to represent the Eau Claire interests at the ensuing session, 1867, Hon. 
J. Gr. Thorp, of Eau Claire, being in the Senate for the Thirty-second 
district. A stock company was organized, providing for a capital of one 
hundred thousand dollars, the outlines of a charter drawn up granting 
corporate powers, the right of domain, authorizing the construction of a 
dam across the Chippewa river at a designated point, with piers, booms, 
and all necessary works for securing and handling logs, and for manufac- 
turing lumber, and imposing such restrictions, and providing for such 
locks, raft-slides, and channels, as would insure the unimpeded naviga- 
tion of the river for rafts, steamboats, logs, and all other craft. Peti- 
tions numerously signed by the people of the lower valley, and a strong 
lobby force, were sent to Madison to assist in passing the bill. The ser- 
vices of Hon. J. C. Grregory, of Madison, a very able advocate, was en- 
gaged to argue the claims and merits of the bill before the committees, 
and strong hopes were entertained that it would become a law ; but the 
opposition were vigilant and equally untiring in their efforts to defeat it, 
and when put on its final passage, it received a small majority in the 
Senate, while the Assembly was decidedly opposed. Such was the com- 
mencement of the great struggle. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

As citizens of the world, caring nothing for country or locality, or the 
welfare and prosperity of one State or section, more than another, man 
would cease to be regarded as patriotic, and however philanthrophic they 
might consider themselves, without some special regard for the country of 
our birth, adoption, or wherein we have made our homes, its success and 
hapiness, we should scarcely be considered good citizens. 

The sources of wealth and comfort or the means of subsistence are not 
equally distributed over the earths surface and aside from man's inherent 
selfishness, which usually induces a love for ones own, his home, his family, 
kindred, possessions, his town or city, State and nation, it would seem to 
be a natural conclusion that whatever resources have been bestowed upon 



142 CUIPPKW'A VALLBY HISTORY. 

any country (other things being equal as to health,' cliraato etc., would 
hest serve human interests and contribute most to the welfare of that 
community by whom such resources are developed by being wrought into 
those fabrics or articles of comfort and convenience to which they are 
best adapted, in the locality, State, or country where they abound. In- 
deed we shall find by the briefest computatiou of the wealth, power, in- 
fluence and progress of civilization and refinement amongst the nations of 
the globe, that in all countries where the internal policy of the govern- 
ment has persistently favored the exportation of the raw material, wheth- 
er derived from the farm, forest, the mine or the sea, — such countries are 
always poor. 

The support of government, education the church, humane and all 
other institutions which conduce to political and social advancement in a 
State, renders it imperatively necessary to raise a revenue from all the 
resources of its people whether natural or industrial, and the policy or 
necessity that precludes any community from the advantages to be deriv 
ed from the manufacture of its raw products or takes them to a distant 
or foreign shore for that purpose, can only be regarded as a grevious 
blunder committed by its rulers or a sad misfortune of its natural posi- 
tion. 

No wonder then, that the people of this valley ivho had borne the 
hardships and incurred the expense of first developing its resources, and 
of establishing homes in a corner so remote, should vehemently oppose 
any and all enterprises having for their object the carrying away of the 
timber cut from our pine forrests to be manufactured into lumber out of 
the State and in distant localities. More than half the value of our pine 
timber would be lost to us if taken to points on the Mississippi to bo saw- 
ed. Strenuous eflForts wore therefore made to induce the capitalists who 
lately acquired title to large quantities of timber land on the Chippewa 
and its tributaries and were anxious to realize from their investment to 
take an interest in some of the mills here that required assistance or er- 
rect now ones and confine the manufacture to this State, but the want of 
some safe and capacious reservoir whore logs could be assorted, and the 
conflicting local interests that defeated all Legislation necessary to insure 
that result, together with promised aid from the owners of mills on the 
Mississippi in the erection of works necessary to secure them in Beef 
Slough, not only deterred them from investing here, but secured an or- 
ganization of means to carry out the latter enterprise. 

And in the fall of 1867 an association composed mostly of luuibcnneu 
from T'lichigan, Fond du Lac, and Oshkosh, in this State, was organized 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 143 

"with a nominal capital of $100,000, having their headquarters at Alma 
n Buffalo county, and for their object the establishment and maintenance 
of a shear boom at the head or entrance of Beef Slough and a cros3 or 
jam boom at a suitable point below, and the necessary works for sorting 
and handling logs. 

Being flush with means and impatient to realize from their pine land 
investment, this company instantly set themselves to effect their object, 
J. H. Bacon, an ambitiou*" and enterprising agent was sent forward to 
commence the work, while a,t^rong lobby prepared to enter the Legislature 
and secure a charter grantii/g the necessary priveleges on the Chippewa 
river. 

At first all the mills on the river joined in the opposition to this gigan- 
tic rival as against a common enemy. Two of the ablest men on the 
river were chosen to represent the two Districts in the Assembly ; in 
Chippewa and Dunn, T. C. Pound, and for Pepin and Eau Claire, Horace 
W. Barnes, who, aided by a strong lobby, defeated the bill on a direct 
vote in the Assembly ; but another bill was subsequently introduced, a 
copy of an old Portage City charter changing the Dames of persons and 
localities — merely a working charter, it was claimed, embodying no speci- 
fic privileges except corporate powers, but which was afterwards found to 
contain nearly everything asked for, and the work went on in spite of op- 
position. 

Disastrous as the success of this new organization was considered by 
the mill men, a considerable class of our citizens favored the innovation. 
They were the class known as loggers who, while the mills on the Chippe- 
wa were the only purchasers of logs, saw themselves completely at the 
mercy of a dozen or twenty monopolists. What cared they whether cities 
grew up at Davenport, Clinton and Muscatine by the manufacture of our 
pine into lumber, instead of at Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire, if they 
could only get fifty cents per 1 housand more for logs with the promise of 
cash in the place of trade for pay. 

But most of the mills were illy prepared for the new order of things. 
Subjected to annual losses by floods and short supply of logs for want of 
storage, few of them had been able to erect sorting works and keep suf- 
ficient force to sort out and pass the logs below going to other parties, and 
secure their own, and therefore had recourse to exchanging marks, as the 
practice was called. About fifty million feet of logs were contracted by 
the agent for the Slough Co., this year, 1868, and on the opening of spring, 
a driving force of 125 men was placed on the river, and a watchman at 
every boom and mill to guard the interest? of the new company. A mod- 



144 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

erate fresbet favored the drivers this spring, and it was well into June 
before the main force of the Beef Slough Company reached the Slough, 
who on their way down had cut or opened almost every boom on the river, 
and taken out, indiscriminately, whatever logs they contained. It seem- 
ed as though the agent of the new company aggravated every hardship 
by ruthless, unnecessary and arbitrary destruction of property and loud 
and bitter were the denunciations against him. It had been a doubtful 
problem even amongst the friends of the measure whether logs could be 
successfully driven over the broad sand bars of the lower Chippewa, and 
cost what it would its feasibility must be demonstrated now, or the stock- 
holders, already assessed for the last dollar on their stock, would abandon 
the undertaking, the drive was therefore continued after the water got so 
low that the cost of driving \^as more than the logs were worth. But the 
drive was a fixed fact, and henceforth the Chippewa pinery must furnish 
its quota of logs for the mills and build up the cities on the shores of that 
great river whose tributaries span two thirds of a continent. The next 
session of the Legislature, 1869, witnessed a renewal of the struggle for 
charters, but it was a tri-party fight, with a leaning of the Chippewa Falls 
interest towards Beef Slough, and a final coalition of the two to defeat 
the Dells bill. It was not until the season of 1870 that the final charter 
for the Beef Slough company became a law, by which time the concern 
was completely bankrupt, and several of its stockholders financially crip- 
pled in the endeavor to sustain its credit ; one of whom, Mr. Palms, of 
Michigan, informed me that ia addition to twenty thousand dollars ia 
stock he had actually loaned the company one hundred thousand dollars; 
more than fifty per cent of which will prove an utter loss. 

Like many other western enterprises, the cost of this boom was too 
great for its earnings, and no dividends will probably be declared on the 
original stock. The whole concern, charter, boom, buildings and fixtures 
were leased to the Mississippi Logging Company, who will probably- 
reap where the other sowed. 

Although stoutly opposed and the establishment of those works mucb 
deprecated by a large share of our people as derogatory to our manufac- 
turing interests, their existence has not been without its benefit, even to 
its most strenuous opposers. For in 1869 the Company at the Falls hav- 
ing planted some immense piers directly in the channel at the big eddy, 
just below paint Creek Rapid?, a jam of logs of vast proportions was 
formed against them during the Spring drive, filling up the entire river 
for several miles with logs piled by the force of the current, twenty or 
thirty feet high, totally obstructing the passage of logs and rafts — and 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 145 

presenting a grand, almost sublime spectacle to the beholder — which jam, 
when broken in the July following, by the aid of two steam engines and 
a great force of men, filled the river for miles in extent with floating logs, 
pouring down in such rapid profusion, that any force the mills below could 
command was powerless to arrest their onward course, or secure a hund- 
reth part that belonged to them. Millions on millions of feet of logs 
would have gone into the great river, and been lost in its thousand lagoons 
and bayous which were saved to their owners by the Beef Slough boom. 

One paragraph more and the account of the Beef Slough and Missis- 
sippi Logging Company is done. They have been and are now using the 
Sheer Boom invented and patented by Levi W. Pond, the patent right 
being held by him and the Eau Claire Lumber Company — without con- 
sulting the patentees, alleging, it is said, that the patent is void by 
reason of prior use, and suit has been commenced by the patentees, re- 
quiring the said Booming and Logging Companies to show cause why the 
said Shear Boom now in use by them, should not be discontinued. The 
defendants will of course resist this action to the last extremity. The 
best legal talent in the State has been retained by the parties, and some 
curious developments may be expected to grow out of it. 

The defense however seem to be aware of the hopelessness of their 
cause in the courts, and are lobbying in Congress with a view to abrogate 
the patent. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

To the people who may inhabit this valley half a century hence, this 
chapter may have some interest, but for the reader of to-day, especially 
the residents of Wisconsin who so recently during several succeeding ses- 
sions of the legislature, had their ears filled with discussions of the 
"Dells bill" until it became disgustingly wearisome, its rehearsal at this 
time can yield but little satisfaction. 

Thoroughly convinced by the advantages of the situation, the hopeless 
condition of the entire lumber manufacturing business on the river with- 
out some safe storage boom for logs, and the great expense and difficulty 
of establishing svich a reservoir at any other point, the people, not only 
of Eau Claire, but of Menoraonie and the whole valley of the Chippewa 



146 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

below that point, together with many interested parties in other parts of 
the State, had come to consider the passage of this bill and the improve- 
ments contemplated under it, as the only hope of the lumber interest on 
the river. And the earnestness and determination with which the meas- 
ure was so persistently supported by its friends, was a natural sequence 
of a position so advantageous, and the necessity for such a work. 

Had the bill become a law, we could now determine something near 
what its results would be to the community it was expected to benefit, 
and to that by whom it was so strenuously and successfully opposed, as 
men of capital and business energy that were never known to fail in any 
undertaking were ready to invest in the enterprise. 

As it is, however, the historian can refer the reader to little more than 
the successive steps of the struggle, and its- final defeat at the hands of 
the Executive. 

But it is safe to say that no merely local question ever arrayed the 
people of a state for and against it, or involved issues of greater mo- 
ment, than the Chippewa Dells bill. 

In the fall of 1869, Thadeus C Pound received the Republican nomi- 
nation for the office of Lieutenant Governor, and the Republicans of Eau 
Claire county, though not without many apprehensions in regard to the 
effect his election might have upon their long-cherished enterprise, voted 
solid for the man who of all others they most dreaded in the anticipated 
Struggle to obtain the coveted charter ; their patriotism outran all pri- 
vate and pecuniary considerations, incurring many bitter and ironical 
comments from their friends of the opposite political party. 

By way of atonement and conciliation, however, C. R. Gleaso u, a 
Democrat, and a great favorite of his party throughout the State, was 
elected to the Assembly against V. W. Dorwin, Republican, with the 
hope of carrying the Democratic members in favor of the Dells bill. 

Thadeus C Pound, of Chippewa Falls, was born in Warren county, 
Pennsylvania, received a good academic and thorough business education, 
came to the Falls in the spring of 1856 with his family, and engaged 
himself as clerk in the counting-room of H. S. Allen &: Co., whose sub- 
sequent failure paved the way for the advancement of the young ac- 
countant, after many vicissitudes, to his present high position and stand- 
ing in the business community. 

A leading trait in his character is the ease and perfect self-possession 
with which he approaches monied men and establishes himself in their 
confidence ; even under depressing financial difficulties that would crush 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 147 

some men, he is always composed, and wins success where others would 
fail. 

In the- arena of politics, also, these qualities made him a formidable 
antagonist, whether in the canvass for the people's suffrages, or in the 
legislative hall as champion of any measure he wished to carry, or the 
opponent of any he desired to defeat. 

Elected four times to the Assembly, and to the position of Speaker 
pro torn, in 1869, his legislative experience, his many friends, his elevated 
position, and his sleepless energy, quickened by intense personal interest, 
made him a powerful advorsary in the struggle, which was renewed in 
1870, to carry the Dells bill. 

The bill was carefully drawn, so as to avoid all seeming possibility of 
injury or damage resulting to any party from obstruction to the naviga- 
tion of the river, but the opposition to it was nevertheless stronger and 
more determined than ever ; and each party to the contest went into the 
legislature backed by a strong lobby, able advocates, an army of wit- 
nesses, and volumes of testimony for and against the bill. The rooms 
were thronged with eager partisans whenever it was considered by the 
committees of each house to whom it was referred, and the engrossing 
topic of conversation in every circle, was the bill to incorporate the Chip- 
pewa River Booming and Manufacturing Company at the Dslls, in the 
county of Eau Claire. 

The result of all this immense labor and strife is too well known to 
be repeated here. "Defeated in the Senate" eame flashing over the 
wires, to the chagrin and disappointment of one party, and hilarious 
demonstrations of joy to the other. 

But the end was not yet. The same necessity for the improvement 
still existed, and the hope of final success still animated the friends of 
the bill. One more effort was determined upon, and fiercer and niore res- 
olute still were the demonstrations in its favor, and still more obstinate 
was the resistance, in 1871. 

But a favorable impression had been made on the people of the State 
at large. Those who had never taken pains to inquire into the merits of 
the case, began to think that anything so zealously and persistently 
striven for must, in justice, have claims upon the favor of the people. 
Rumor, however, soon furnished other grounds for this change in public 
sentiment, and for the fact that a majority in both Houses favored the 
bill. "Bribery and corruption, the demoralization of the representatives 
of the people," said Madame Rumor, "has done all this," and Governor 
Lucius Fairchild believed it and vetoed the bill, and the Dalles, with it 



148 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

great, natural basin, fitted expressly, it would seem, for the much-needed 
work, remains to-day just as nature formed it, without any of man's 
handiwork to utilize its advantages, while a costly and precarious substi- 
tute has been erected at Eagle Kapids, as the next best thing to do. It 
has this advantage over the Dalles, however ; it serves the entire mill 
interest on the Chippewa, and obstructs navigation to a very inconsider- 
able extent, and if found to be permanent, and the works prove capable of 
accommodating the great interests they were intended to subserve, it may 
yet prove, all things considered, the best for all the varied and conflicting 
interests that could be done. A trial and test of the value of those 
works, and many other private improvements on this great stream, has 
not yet occurred. But let such a freshet as that of 1847, an account of 
which was given in the early chapters of this work, happen again, and I 
very much fear for the safety of any dams, booms, piers, or bridges on 
the Chippewa. "We may hope and trust that it will never come. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



RAIL WAYS. 



Reference has been made in the foregoing chapters, to a grant of land 
made by Congress in 1856, to be held in trust by the State of Wisconsin 
for the purpose of constructing a Rail Road from Portage city to the 
Mississippi at La Crosse, with a branch from Tomah to the St. Croix 
River. It has also been stated that the Legislature conferred the Grant 
upon an organization known as the "Milwaukee and La Crosse Rail Road 
Company, at the head of which was Byron Kilbourn ; this last named 
branch being designated in the Charter of 1857 as the AYestern Wiscon- 
sin Rail Road. It probably had never occurred to the people of this 
valley nor to their representatives in Congress at tbe time the aforesaid 
grant was made, that we should ever need a road running transversely to 
this — down the river and on to the great prairie world to the Southwest 
of us — for, as it was then fashionable for the government to give away 
its lands to build Rail Roads, there is little doubt but a donation could 
easily have been obtained for a Road extending from Ashland on Lake 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 149 

Superior, via Chippewa Falls, Eau Claire and Wabasha to Fort Dodge 
and the Missouri River in Iowa. Such a grant, for a Road crossing 
three great States would have found able advocates, and when built 
would have been one of the best paying roads in the Northwest. 

St. Paul and Minneappolis were wise enough to see the point and se- 
cure a grant for the Sioux City road and are now reaping its advantages, 
while we have just begun to realize the want of a thoroughfare in that 
direction. Private enterprise will probably supply the want in time, but 
at the time of which we are speaking, the river was deemed altogether 
sufficient for the transportation of our lumber, and connection with the 
East of paramount importance; and the Hon. C. C. Washburn our Rep- 
resentative in Congress was instructed to secure the grant for this, the 
West Wisconsin Road, the route for which presented so many obstacles 
and so few inducements in regard to the value of the land and the pro- 
spective business over the road when built, that although ten years were 
designated in the act as the time for its completion no capitalists had 
been found up to the expiration of that period bold enough to undertake 
it. 

Kilbourn and his associates had indeed sent out surveying parties who 
after making perliminary surveys for half a dozen different roiates finally 
fixed upon the extreme Southwestern line, or the one nearest the Missis- 
sippi and farthest from the great business interests, it was intended to 
subserve — the luml)er business — of any route examined, for the location 
of the Road. 

In conformity with the act of Congress, the lands along this line were 
immediately withdrawn from market for six miles on either side, until all 
embraced in the odd-numbered sections should be designated on the offi- 
cial plats of the respective land-offices in the districts through which it 
passed, and greatly elated were the settlers along the line at the prospec t 
of immediate railroad facilities. 

As an inducement to capitalists, these lands were exempted from taxa- 
tion for ten years, but the prostration of all business operations, caused 
by the revulsion of 1857-8, and extending into several succeeding years, 
and the probable completion at an early day of other railroad lines to St. 
Paul, the objective point of this road, forbade aU hope that a road would 
ever be constructed on that line. Another discouraging feature was that 
the company who were pushing one of these competing lines, held the 
franchises of this road by transfer from the old bankrupt company upon 
whom it was conferred. In view of this condition of affairs pertaining 
to the land grant, and the prospect of its forfeiture to the government. 



150 CHIPPEWA TALLEY niSTORY. 

some of the business men of St. Croix, Dunn, Chippewa, Eau Claire, and 
Jackson counties, the most prominent of whom were D. A. Baldwin, 
Capt. WiUiam Wilson, J. G. Thorp, H. S. Allen, and W. T. Price, 
conceived the idea of a new organization to build the road. 

These men, with their associates, were incorporated in March, 1863, 
by act of the legislature, with the title of the Tomah and St. Croix 
Kailwav Company, and held their first meeting at Durand, on the 9th of 
June following. At the next session, the legislature conferred the land 
grant upon this company, with the right of way and the privilege of lo- 
eatinc the line on its present route. Congress was also memorialized to 
renew the grant, which was done, and exemption from taxes on the land 
until 1870 also granted. 

It does not appear to have been the intention of the incorporators and 
stockholders in this organization to invest their means in the undertak- 
ing ; indeed, few of them at that time had any capital to invest in any 
enterprise outside their regular business ; neither did they expect to re- 
alize any benefits, except to secure the building of the road. 

The only hope of achieving the object the company had in view, was 
to induce capitalists from abroad to take hold of the work, and the first 
thing to do was to survey the new route and obtain correct profiles, esti- 
mates of the cost of the work, topographical descriptions of the country, 
present and prospective value of the lands donated, and the business of 
the road when completed. To accomplish this required at least twenty 
thousand dollars, and one man only in the company was sanguine enough 
in his hopes of success to advance the money, and that man was D. A. 
Baldwin, of Hudson. 

In the fall of 1864, he caused a surveying party in charge of a compe- 
tent engineer to take the field, whose labors were continued for the 
year and all necessary examinations made — profiles, maps, estimated cost, 
description of the country, soil, timber, production, etc. 

Armed with these vouchers, Mr. Baldwin, under the direction of the 
company, visited the Eastern cities and Europe, for the purpose of en- 
listing capitalists to undertake the work ; and in the fall of 1SG6 suc- 
ceeded in inducing four or five gentlemen from New York to come on 
and personally examine the route and inquire into the resources of the 
country. They could see no inducement to invest, and, being mostly 
financial agents only, made a most dismal and discouraging report to their 
principals. 

At the next meeting of the Directors, the entire management of the 
concern was delegated to Mr. Baldwin, who was authorzcd to contract 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 151 

with any party, and on any terms, that would corjstruet the road, con- 
sistent with his interests. It was up-hill business, and he now began to 
realize that he had a good-sized elephant on his hands. 

The principal railroad corporations doing business in the State were 
applied to ; their means and energies were all absorbed and directed in 
the extension of more hopeful lines, and could afford no immediate aid. 
The apathy of Milwaukee in regard to this work has been the subject of 
condemnation by the press and people of this part of the State, and the 
advantages now reaped by the Chicago and Northwestern road are its 
natural sequences. 

The Atlantic was again crossed, and two full years consumed in fruit- 
less endeavor to find the right man. But his perseverance was equal to 
the occasion, and his efforts finally crowned with success. 

Jacob Humbird, of Baltimore, was a successful railroad contractor ; 
had lately returned from Brazil, where extensive contracts under the Im- 
perial Government had resulted in a handsome fortune. To him Mr. 
Baldwin submitted his case, exhibited his profiles, estimates, acts of Con- 
gress and the Legislature ; in fact, all the franchises of the road, and the 
resources of the country through which it was to pass, and a contract 
for all the work to complete the road was immediately drawn up and 
signed by the parties. It is reasonable to suppose that, under such cir- 
cumstances, Mr. Humbird obtained very favorable terms ; and, as the 
price of labor and every commodity was greatly inflated by the late war, 
it is not at all surprising that the cost of the work exceeded the esti- 
mates, or that its earnings should sometimes fall short of the interest, at 
least on the nominal investment. 

The funds to complete the first thirty-two miles, to Black River Falls, 
were furnished entirely by Mr. Humbird, the payment of which, and all 
other sums due him for work under contract, is secured by a construc- 
tion lien, or first mortgage, on the road-bed. Certificates were immedi- 
ately issued by the Grovernor for the lands, and an eight per cent, loan 
effected in Europe, receivable in installments as the work progressed, and 
secured by bond and mortgage on both the lands and the road-bed. Be- 
fore commencing the work, the name of the West Wisconsin Railway 
was assumed in accordance with an act of the legislature. 



152 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XXXYIII. 



So long had the hopes of the people along the line of this road been de- 
ferred, that, m order to encourage capitalists to invest in the enterprise, 
a proposition was submitted to the legislature in 1866, at the time the 
right of way over the new route was granted, to authorize the several 
counties through which the road was to pass, to raise certain sums, by 
vote of the electors, as subsidies to the company when the road should be 
completed to designated points. 

In Dunn county, the question submttted was for the county to guaran- 
tee title to the lands required by the road, which was promptly voted 
down, but in Eau Claire county the vote was for a subsidy of tifty thou- 
sand dollars in county bonds, which, according to the returns made at the 
time, November, 1868, was carried by a considerable majority. But 
when the conditions had been complied with by the enterprising Compa- 
ny, the County Commissioners refused the application for the bonds, on 
the ground that a judicial decision just then rendered in one of the courts 
of this State, declared the whole matter of subsidizing corporations, by 
counties, unconstitutional and void. 

The demand has been renewed this year, and it is not at all improba- 
ble that the next application will be to Judge Hopkin's court for a man- 
damus to compel their issue. 

The lands along the route of the proposed railroad, having been several 
years subject to private entry at the time the grant was made, some of 
the best locations had been taken by purchase or pre-emption, and in or- 
der to supply the deficiency, Congress, on the 5th of June, 1864, made 
an additional grant, the selections to be made by some person to be ap- 
pointed by the Secretary of State (State Secretary) from the odd num- 
bered sections for ten sections in width along the new line, the amount 
to be equal to ttie deficiency aforesaid, which accounts for the wide space 
occupied by the railroad company's lands. 

Whether Mr. Baldwin at any time endeavored to raise funds to com- 
plete the road thus endowed, by placing the stock of the comwany on the 
market, does not appear from any records, and from the fact that quota- 
tions of West Wisconsin Railway stock never appear in financial state- 
ments, we may infer that either from choice or necessity he resorted to 
the sale of bonds as the only means of acquiring the necessary capital 
and the stock of the company was issued for other purposes than to cover 
or represent any considerable share of the actual investment. 



CPHIPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 153 

On obtaining title to the lands, as the work j^i'ogresseJ, another cliffi- 
-culty presented itself • they were liable to taxation, and as capital is al- 
ways cowardly, it became dreadfully frightened, and in 1870, being una- 
ble to negotiate further loans on that account, Messrs. Baldwin and Hum- 
bird came before the legislature and declared ^that the work must stop 
unless the lands were exempted from taxation. 

The road was now completed to Augusta, in Eau Claire county, and 
very impatient were the people of this and the St. Croix valleys for its 
immediate extension, and their representatives were instructed to sup- 
port almost any measure that would insure its completion, and, with little 
opposition, the bill to exempt for ten years became a law — all the lauds 
being included except those lying in Pierce county. 

The work was now prosecuted with great energy, and in August fol- 
lowing, the welcome sound of the locomotive was heard in Eau Claire, 
and, following the example of Black River Falls and Augusta, it was 
made the occasion of a grand ovation. Many substantial citizens of 
Milwaukee, Madison, La Crosse, Hudson, St. Paul, and all the villages 
along the line, Chippewa Falls, Durand, and from the surrounding coun- 
try, responded to the invitation to help us celebrate the memorable event. 
A free dinner was provided for aU, and Hon. Alexander Meggett w^el- 
comed the visitors, and set forth the industrial and commercial advantages 
of this valley in an able and appropriate speech, pointing out many re- 
markable incidents in its history and development, and hailing the railroad 
as the harbinger of stiU grander achievements, It was responded to by 
John Nazro, of Milwaukee, in a few pertinent and appreciative remarks, 
acknowledging the honor of the visit, and the interest the people of his 
city felt in our prosperity, and of the iron bands that now linked our 
welfare with theirs — eulogizing Messrs. Baldwin and Humbird very 
handsomely. 

It frequently happens that those who assume to lead public opinion and 
represent the interests of the community, have at heart some petty 
scheme of their own, in which the great mass of the people not only have 
no interest, but upon whom its success inflictb positive injury. It is pos- 
sible that such was the case with the parties who were instrumental in 
passing the bill to exempt from taxation the lands of the West Wisconsia 
Railroad Company. Certain it is that the people residing in the locality 
most affected by its provisions, were never consulted — the farmers along 
the old line, where the great body of the lands lay. But they soon be- 
gan to realize its disastrous conseq[uences, and the next year, 1871, 



154 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Trempeleau county -was excepted from its provisions, and the asssessors 
forthwith included the railroad lands in the real estate list. 

Regarding the law as a contract between the railroad company, it3 
creditors, and the people of Wisconsin, the managers refused to pay the 
tax, and brought suit to restrain the oounty officers from the sale and 
transfer of their lands under the laws provided for that purpose upon 
non-resident and unoccupied lands. 

Upon the trial of the case before Judge Bunn, the Hon. John C . 
Spooner, attorney for the road, urged the binding force of said contract, 
the illegality of the law of 1871 which excepted Trempealeau county from 
its provisions after having entered into and receiving the benefits of the 
contract, said the creditors of the road whe had advanced the money to 
build it, had placed imi^licit faith in the people of this State, and that 
every sense of right, manhood, and honor, bound the people to shield the 
company again?t the imposition of such a tax. 

Hon. A. W. Newman, for the defence, repelled the idea of a contract 
in the exemption law of 1870 ; said the people were sovereign and inde- 
pendent, that if one legislature made bad laws, it was not only the right 
but the duty of the next to repeal them ; that this law was partial, in- 
iquitous, and clearly unconstitutional, and its repeal demanded by justice 
and the rights of the people. Held that the assessment was legal, and 
the suit was dismissed with costs. An appeal to the Supreme Court was 
of course taken, and, after exhaustive argument, the judgment affirmed. 
But the foreign bond-holders, desu'ous of making this a test case, ap- 
pealed to the United States Supreme Court, where the cause is to be ar- 
gued on its merits. 

In the meantime, it consiant struggle is going on to effect the repeal of 
the law so obnoxious to the settlers near the location of those lands, who, 
by the removal of the line of the road, are so far away as to reap none 
of its benefits, and as the exemption from tax enables the company to 
hold the lands at a price far above what it would sell for if subject to as- 
sessment, it is natural that the law should be very repugnant to them. It 
is hardships like these that has brought the whole subject of railroad sub- 
sidies and land grants into public condemnation. The statement recently 
made by Mr. Spooner before a legislative committee, in his argument 
against the repeal of this law, that "two immense fortunes had been sunk 
in the undertaking," needs to be taken with a great many grains of al- 
lowance. Thw assets of the road are undoubtedly sufficient to pay the 
principal and interest of every dollar actually invested, and if roads like 
the Green Bay and Mississippi can be built and made self-sustaining 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 155^ 

■without any land grant or other subsidy, it must be self-evident that the 
West Wisconsin, if built without any Credit-Mobilier steals, and run 
economically, will be able to meet all its responsibilities either with or 
without the "Potter" law. It has a ten-mile feeder running up to Chip- 
pewa Falls, built during the past summer, 1874, by a company organized 
in that city, with the aid of twenty-five thousand dollars voted by the 
citizens, and being chartered with the title of Chippewa Falls and Wes- 
tern Railroad, it may be considered the first division of an important 
work to connect this valley with the great timberless but fertile regions 
beyond the Mississippi. Extraordinary pluck and energy were displayed 
by the managers in accomplishing such a work at this time. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 



MINERALS. 



The valley of the Chippewa appears to have received very little atten- 
tion, SO far, from the State Geologist, or from the parties sent out by 
the general government to make geological surveys in this State. The 
party under the direction of Hon. David Dale Owen, who ascended the 
river in June, 1847, before referred to in this work, did nothing more 
than collect a few specimens, examine the formation and ascertain the 
general geologic structure from what was visible along the shores and in 
the beds of the streams. This, and all other later surveys in the north- 
western part of this State, seems to have been directed almost exclusively 
to the mineral regions of Lake Superior, the southern boundary of which, 
so far as known, seems to be the Penoka Iron Range, which, extending 
west in irregular ridges, constitutes the "height of land," or summit, be- 
tween the lake water-shed and the Chippewa and other tributaries of the 
Mississippi. In the absence of more complete, practical, and detailed 
geological surveys of this part of the State, no accurate estimate of its 
mineral resources can be made. It is believed that iron ore exists in 
many localities, that scientific examinations, capital, and enterprise will 
develop into sources of wealth. 

On the west side of the Chippewa, a little back from the shore, at the 
foot of an abrupt ridge, or bluff, and a little north of the correction line. 



156 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

between towns thirty and thirty-one north, are found, bursting out from 
the side-hill, quite a number of springs, all so strongly impregnated with 
iron, and perhaps some other minerals, that, though clear as crystal, the 
water is so disagreeable to the taste that no one can drink it, A little 
farther in the interior, surrounded by sharp pine ridges are several 
stagnant ponds, the waters of which filter through the earth and find 
egress by these springs. And near one of these ponds, on the top of a 
hill originally covered with thrifty sapling pines, I counted on a single 
acre more than a dozen trees that had at different times been blasted by 
lightning. What could have attracted to this particular spot, on so many 
different occasions, the destructive force of this subtle agent? The lo- 
<jality is some two hundred rods southwest of Bob's Creek. 

The southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section nineteen, 
town twenty-eight north, of range eight west, in La Fayette township, 
is, in the spring of the year, and during high water, a lake, or consti- 
tutes part of a lake covering a hundred acres or more, which usually dries 
up in summer. A considerable stream, taking its rise among the sand 
hills to the southeast, and flowing through a marsh, empties into the lake 
at this point. The bottom of the lake was originally a coarse, loose 
sand, now covered with a deposit from the inlet a foot in depth, perhaps 
more near its entrance. On removing this muddy deposit, a compact 
stratum of iron is found an inch or t-vo in thickness, below which is a 
layer of sand succeeded by another of iron, and so on in consecutive strata 
of sand and iron, of varying thickness, to the depth of four feet, the iron 
in some instances being three inches in thickness and seemingly pure ore, 
but as it has never been submitted to scientific test, nothing can be posi- 
tively known of its value. 

These iron strata appear to have been formed by deposits from the wa- 
ter as it filtered down through the sand during time's slow processes ; but 
whence the source ? May not those red sandstone ridges from whence 
comes this inlet, be the depositories of immense beds of iron? 

The Rev. Dr. Alfred Brunson, so well known and so intimately iden- 
tified with every historical and scientific development in this State, writes 
as follows in relation to the prospective mineral resources of this valley : 

Thos. E. Randall — My Dear Sir : — Our correspondence in refer- 
ence to the Chippewa Valley History gives me quite a brotherly feeling 
toward you, and should I ever visit Eau Claire, I should have a strong 
inclination to give you a call, and should you visit our place I should ex- 
pect a return of the compliment. 

The recent accounts of the discovery of gold in the woods somewhere 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 157 

at or near the head springs of the Chippewa, reminds me of an incident 
or two touching mineral matters, of which, I presume, you will write, to 
make your History complete. I know not how precise you will be in 
confining your remarks to the precise limits of the valley, or whether you 
will follow the windings of the ridge which [divides the waters of your 
river from those of other rivers and the great lake, I am unable to decide, 
but presume you will claim every inch of your territory, especially if rich, 
minerals are found there* 

In 1843, when 1 was Indian Agent at La Pointe, on Lake Superior, 
an Indian of mixed blood presented me with a piece of pure silver (which 
I yet have) about the value of half a dollar. He said he picked it out 
of a rock on or near the divide between the waters that flow to the south 
— in true Indian style. He refused to give the least intimation as to the^ 
locality, but my impression is that he was a Flambeau Indian, and that 
the rock lies on or near the trail leading from that lake to La Pointe, 
which cannot be far from the track of the railroad now being built to 
Ashland. 

There were two trails leading from La Pointe south — one to Flambeau, 
and the other to the St. Croix valley. It is possible that it was the lat- 
ter, but my impression is that it was the former. 

Now, as the enterprise of your valley men is equal to anything, it is 
possible that some one, taking this hint, may find the treasure. Another 
mineral that may be profitable, lies nearer your city. On my way from 
this place to La Pointe, in the summer of 1843, after leaving the Chip- 
pewa falls, our route was between the waters of the Chippewa and Cedar. 
At one of our camps, which, I think, could not have been more than 
forty or fifty miles from the falls, possibly not so much now, a young In- 
dian in our company (no other Indian then being present) told my son, 
B. "W. Brunson, now of St. Paul, and Mr. Wm. Warren, my interpre- 
ter, that we were near the "Red Pipe-stone" mountain, and ofi'ered to 
pilot them to it if they would not tell the Indians of it, for if they knew 
of his showing a white man where it was, they would kill him. He led 
them to the mound by one route and from it by another, and left at the 
mound a plug of tobacco and some other trifling article, to appease the 
Manitou, or Great Spirit, on account of the trespass on the sacred spot. 
This, he said, was the Indian custom in visiting that mound to obtain 
stones of which they made their pipes. 

Of the specimen brought away, several pipes were whittled out with 
knives and carried along. This stone hardens on being exposed to the 
air. It admits of a glossy polish, like marble, and is impervious to the 



158 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

oil of tobacco trom smoking. I should think it could be turned to profit 
for slabs or furniture, where red instead of white should be the fancy. 
The locality of this mound is difficult to settle. In looking over the map 
of the State, I see we must have traveled near the line between ranges 
ten and eleven, mostly in range ten, and should think the mound is in 
town thirty-four or thirty-five, in range ten. Respectfully, 

Alfred Brunson. 

Pipe-stone mountain, referred to by the learned Doctor, or "Mountain 
of the Prairie," as Longfellow calls it in Hiawatha, is situated on the 
west half of section twenty-seven, town thirty-five north, of range ten 
west. 

It is now owned by H. C. Putnam, Esq., of this city, who bought it 
of the government some time ago, after having personally examined the 
premises. His visit was made under the guidance of an Indian half-breed, 
who was tj^uite as superstitious in regard to the desecration of the sacred 
spot, as was the one who attended the party of Dr. Brunson. 

Mr. Putnam describes it as an oblong, irregular mound, rising two 
hundred and fifty to three hundred feet above the surrounding surface, 
sloping down from the summit on the north and west in irregular but not 
very bold declivities, but on the southeast in a concave form, as though 
a section of the hill had at some time lost its foundation and sunk, a third 
or more of its original size breaking off" in a curved perpendicular line, 
and even now presenting a sublime exhibition of the convulsions of na- 
ture, well calculated to inspire awe in the savage breast. Before its up- 
hsaval, the mound appears to have been a mass of very fine red clay, 
which has hardened into a compact, nearly seamless, beautiful stone, well 
adapted to the purpose to which the Indians have applied it, and, no 
doubt, will be found far more useful and ornamental when the artistic 
skill of his less superstitious, enlightened successors, have opened the ways 
of commerce, and carved the easily wrought, but beautiful and substan- 
tial material into forms of elegance, adapted to the wants of civilization. 

Small nuggets of silver and specimens of silver ore have occasionally 
been brought down the river by Indian and half-breed hunters, ever since 
the first white settlers came here, said to have been gathered on the rocky 
shores of some of the small lakes, on the head waters of the Flambeau, 
but nothing could induce those hunters to disclose the precise locality, 
and we must trust to time, circumstances, and scientific research to un- 
fold this hidden wealth. 

In ascending the Chippewa from its mouth, we discover the same sand- 
stone formation that underlies the whole Mississippi valley, but the lime- 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 159 

stone "wltli •wbich it is overlaid disappears at Durand, above wliieb, with 
a single exception in the big woods west of Menomonee, no calcareous 
rock is found, and the sandstone becomes thinner, more uneven, rising in 
places into irregular jagged peaks and ridges, between which the river 
has worn itself a winding bed, until we reach the falls, where, in a de- 
scent of twenty-two feet over the hardest granite, nearly vertical in its 
structure, it has scarcely made an impression on the obdurate rock in all 
the ages. 

A few miles above this point, the sandstone formation entirely disap- 
pears, granite boulders disfigure the surface of the soil in many places, 
and obstruct the navigation of the river ; a rock so hard as to be almost 
unmanageable for building purposes. 

In town twenty-six north, range three west, in Clark county, on the 
head waters of Wedges creek, and near the source of the south fork of 
Hay creek, there rises suddenly to the traveler, right up in the midst of 
a dense forest of tall timber, a stupendous hill or mountain of pure crys- 
tallized sandstone, compact, fine-grained, white in some places as the 
driven snow, which glistened in the setting sun at the time I visited it in 
1855 like polished marble. The peak rises about four hundred feet 
above the surface of the surrounding country, and seems to have been 
shot up to an immense height, as great masses that have fallen from its top 
and been detached from its sides, lie in great, irregular heaps at its base 
— beautiful in the confusion which surrounds them. See Webb's geo- 
logical report for a more definite description of this striking instance of 
Nature's handiwork in the creation of a most romantic spot. 



CHAPTER XL. 

In looking over what has been stated in this work in regard to the 
seasons, I think of some things that have been omitted which may inter- 
est the reader and preserve the record of some of the most remarkable 
atmospheric changes, extremes in temperature and variations in the 
climate of this part of the State at a time when there were no newspapers 
nor newspaper reporters here to take note of them. Messrs. Allen and 
Brunette concur in the statement that the winter of 18.37-8, and the 
spring of 1838, were ^cry remarkable for extremes of cold and heat, of 
drought and 11 jod. 



160 ' CHIPPEWA VALLEY UISTORY. 

Those of my readers whose memory reaches back to the fall of the first 
named year, will remember it as the one in which occurred the most re- 
markable meteoric illumination on record. An old fashioned January 
thaw, accompanied with rain, thunder and lightning dissolved the ice in 
the Mississippi, and enabled a steamboat to come up in "the middle of 
the winter," as a French flour dealer in Gralena said when his monopoly in 
that article was broken by its arrival ; succeeded by four weeks of the 
coldest weather ever known at that season of the year throughout the 
Northwest — marked the beginning of 1838. Spring came early, the 
month of March being cloudless and warm as June, but the most fearful 
storms of winds, hail, rain, thunder and lightning prevailed in April, 
May and June, — the temperature varying in twenty-four hours from zero 
to seventy on some occasions — and causing the highest water in the Chip- 
pewa ever known — such a freshet as if it were to occur now would sweep 
away millions of dollars worth of property, including every bridge on 
the river ; and submerged every farm and mill on the Chippewa bottoms 
below Eau Claire to the depth of several feet. The Mississippi was also 
very high, flooding " AVabashaw's Prairie," where Winona now stands, 
with water ten feet deep 

The winter of 1845-6, was in some respects a most uncommon one, 
preceded by a most lovely " Indian summer," lasting until near the 
close of November, it set in with a furious snow storm succeeded by a 
cold snap of such intensity as to close the Chippewa in a single night, 
almost its entire length. This cold term extended to the Q-ulf of 
Mexico, with terrible severity, closing the Mississippi at St. Louis and 
Memphis, causing immense damage to steamboats lying at the levee in 
the former city, when the ice broke up four weeks later. 

After this first snow scarcely any fell during the winter here ; what is 
still more remarkable, was the long thaw that followed, so warm that by 
the tenth of January, 1846, there was scarcely a speck of ice in the 
Chippewa. There was no rain, but the snow dissolved under the influence 
of the summer like sun breaking into the calculations of the loggers with 
ruinous effect. Just such a winter now would be better than a dozen 
Saginaw conventions to raise the price of lumber. 

Directly the reverse of this, but quite as disastrous to loggers and bus- 
iness generally were the winters of 1842-3, and 1856-7, setting in early 
in November, they will ever be remembered as " the deep snow winters," 
snowing one day and blowing the next, almost the entire season. In the 
woods, heavy, compact snow lay on the ground everywhere, six feet deep, 
and in many places ten, while the prairies were piled with drifts that ob- 



I 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 161 

structed all the ways cf travel, and hemmed in many an isolated new 
settler, and as effectually cutting off communication with the rest of the 
world for the time being, as though he were the only man upon the earth* 
Some of our more recent winters have been pretty severe on railroads in 
the Northwest, but one like either of those would well nigh bankrupt all 
the feeble ones. 

But the winter that came on the earliest was that of 1873-4. Snow 
sufficient to make good sleighing falling on the twenty-fifth day of October 
and continuing until spring ; it was, however, a very mild winter. 

The religious and educational interests of this valley have, perhaps, 
received less attention in these pages than they deserve, and I think of 
some items which should not be lost. 

The^ reader has already been informed that a large share of the settlers 
of Chippewa Falls were Ca nadian French, succeeded by another large 
percentage of Irish and Grerman of the Koman Catholic faith, good citi- 
zens, and zealous Christians in their way, but not to be counted on when 
the claims of other sects are presented in the furtherance of any religious 
enterprise, which, with the hardships attending new and hazardous un- 
dertakings, the constantly recurring losses to which the mill company was 
subjected, and the struggles of every one to provide for his own, made 
the prospect for establishing a Protestant church there in 1856, look very 
discouraging. But in the summer of that year. Rev. TV. W. McNair 
came up the river, charged with the responsibility of founding Presby- 
terian churches and erecting church edifices at that place and Eau 
Claire. 

Of the Protestant population then at the Falls, not more than six or 
eight persons of both sexes considered themselves as even nominal Pres- 
byterians, but amongst them were three sisters of E.* A. Galloway, 
whose zeal and sympathies were immediately enlisted in the good cause. 

The company of H. S. Allen & Co., of course, subscribed liberally, 
gave the building, lot, lumber, and materials, but under the constant 
pressure of business cares and liabilities, could bestow little attention on 
religious or other enterprises. The three sisters had little to bestow, but 
their hearts were willing and their hands active. Money was very plen- 
ty, and all around them were men whose earnings were daily squandered 
at the card table and saloon. Their only hope was to induce some of 
these men to appropriate a share of their means to a. better object, even 
if the motive was inspired by no higher consecration. 

The company was erecting a large new hotel ; some of its largest 
rooms would answer for pleasant, social, evening parties ; a dance in Chip- 



ICSl , CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

pewa Falls had never been known to fail in bringing "down the dust" 
from the stingiest pocket. Sham post-offices, fish pools, and grab bags 
may be by some considered a more innocent or less culpable method of 
raising money for a good cause, but these sisters secured good music, pre- 
pared generous plain lunches, charged a moderate fee, and induced almost 
every young man in the place, married or single. Catholic, Protestant, or 
Nothingarian, to contribute something towards the Presbyterian church, 
and the donors were all better pleased than they could have been at their 
■Hsual haunts. 

Shall any one say that the efforts and offerings of these ladies were 
less acceptable because "dancing" was a part of the social recreation at 
these gatherings ? 

At the same time, Mr. McNair was maturing arrangements for' erect- 
ing a church in Eau Claire, which, through the liberality of the proprie- 
tors of the village and the earnest efforts of the ladies, the pastor, and 
the people, was completed the next year, as heretofore stated. Festivals 
were frequently held by the former to raise the necessary funds, an ac- 
count of one of which I find in the Eau Claire Times of November 7th, 
1857, — a spicy little sheet of Democratic'proclivities, the first newspaper is- 
sued in this valley, the first number on the 21st of August, 1857 — from 
which I make the following extracts : 

"'At about ten o'clock the signal was given for supper, and about one 
hundred and fifty individuals sat down to the daintily spread board." 

A pretty large crowd, we should think, even no k, for a religious festi- 
val. 

"After the cloth was removed, speeches were made by N. B. Boydcn, 
Esq., A. Megg^tt, Esq., and Rev. W. W. McNair." 

A few extracts from the many good things in Mr. Meggett's speech, 
seem appropriate here. He said : 

"We are met here, my friends, to contribute of our substance that the 
first temple of religion reared in this valley may be appropriately adorned 
and it may be, as we have participated in these scenes and witnessed the 
arrangements made by fair hands and willing liearts for our enjoyment, 
that pi*esent admiration rather than reflection has crowded from our minds 
all thoughts of the tran.scendcnt importance of the work before us. * 
* * * Man is eminently a religious being, and though 
often departing from the immutable principle of right, his loftiest aspira- 
tions, his tendercst emotions, his finest feelings and sublimest conceptions, 
have their foundation in, and are most intimately connected with, his re- 
ligious nature — the avenue through which you must approach him in or- 



CHIPPKWA VALLEY HISTORY. 163 

' del- to wield the power of revealed truth, if you would save him from the 
grossness of sia and secure to him the joys of a pure and holy life. 
Without religious culture his whole life is a moral waste, a desert unre- 
lieved by a single oasis of virtue and high-toned thought and aspiration. 
* * * Nothing could argue so well for the character of 
our people as the early erection of a temple of worship under circum- 
stances so disheartening, but now the work is nearly completed, and to 
you, sir, its pastor, who have watched over it from its first inception, we, 
as a community, owe a debt of gratitude we can never pay." 

"Appropriate toasts followed, by the speaker, Mrs. Thorp, N. C. 
Chapman, and Mr. Porter, responded to by Rev. Mr. McNair." 

Like all other people, the early settlers of Eau Claire who had con- 
tributed of their means to erect this first church, had their preferences 
In regard to who should occupy its pulpit. Rev. Mr. Kidder, from the 
city of New York, had removed to the village while the church was in 
process of building, and, during the absence of Mr. McNair, preached in 
the new church before its dedication. A Congregationalist of the more 
advanced and liberal school, a classical speaker and earnest worker, h§ 
soon became a great favorite with all the people of more advanced 
thought and liberal Christian views. And, naturally enough, as their 
means contributed largely toward the buildinir, they claimed the right to 
ask that Mr. Kidder be installed its pastor. 

Considerable bitterness grew out of this question, but it was finally 
arranged that Mr. Kidder should have a church on the West Side — a 
Congregational church, which, notwithstanding the prostration of busi- 
ness and the decline in the price of lumber, went forward under the su- 
perintendence of the pastor, who had already organized a'church, and by 
persistent encouragement, economy, and energy its completion was ac- 
complished. 

As usual in the settlement of new countries, quite a number of Uni- 
versalists, and others of the more radical religious element, had found 
homes in Eau Claire, but for a long time no effort was made to ascertain 
their number or strength. Some time before Christmas of the year 1858, 
Mrs. Edwin Wilkins issued a card inviting all Universalists and other 
liberally inclined religious people in Eau Claire and vicinity, without any 
distinction of age, sex, condition, or acquaintanceship, to meet at her 
house on the evening of that day to confer with each other in regard to 
their mutual religious welfare and future advancement, and to enjoy her 
hospitality. It met a hearty response from a large number of intelligent, 
earnest, liberal, Chi'istian men and women, who, after mutual congratu- 



164 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

lations, organized a Universalist sociable, to meet once a •week, for mu- 
tual improvement, and with a view to the establishment of a Universal- 
ist church. In July of the nest year, 1S59, Rev. Dolphus Skinner, of 
Utica, N. Y., came to Eau Claire on a visit to his son. Dr. F. R. Skin- 
ner, and held divine services on Sunday morning at Reed's Hall, and in 
the afternoon on the West Side. These were powerful discourses, and 
confirmed many wavering minds in the doctrine of God's impartial grace. 

The sociables were well sustained, and quite a fund accumulated in its 
treasury, and in February, 1860, Rev. Joseph 0. Barrett was engaged 
to minister to their spiritual wants. Services were held at first in Reed's 
Hall, but building lots were soon bought and exchanged with the East 
Side school district, whose house had become too small, and a house of 
worship secured. 

The society was now considered very prosperous, united, and flourish- 
ing, but the war created dissensions, many of the ablest and most influ- 
ential of themembers removed to other localities, and now the house and 
lot are the only remaining evidences that such Christians asUniversalists 
live in the city. Unfaithful pastors, however, are greatly responsible 
for this state of things. 

Perhaps no Christian people ever struggled harder to establish them-. 
selves in a new^locality than the Methodists of this city. Few at first in 
numbers, and'still more feeble in point of wealth, their progress was at 
first very slow : their school, the "Wesleyan Institute," received no en- 
dowment, thoughMt flourished for a year or two ; but the ministrations 
of that church are so well adapted to the religious wants of the masses, 
and its preachers have been so zealous and active, that seemingly insur- 
mountable obstacles have been overcome, and two church edifices, one on 
each Side, have been built, and large congregations worship therein. 

The Baptists, Catholics, and German Lutherans have each a church 
and sustain religious services in this city, and the Lutherans from Nor- 
way and Sweden, Rev. Ammon Johnson pastor, have two fine churches, 
one on each side, and the Episcopalians have commenced the erection of a 
fine edifice. 

Eau Claire boasts of four flourishing graded district schools, and three 
denominational in a feeble condition, the greater advantages of the graded 
schools withdrawing their support. 

In Chippewa Falls the authorities have divided the school fund be- 
tween the Catholic and Protestant population, and each has a flourishing 
graded school at which their children respectively attend, but both arc 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 165 

under the direction of the Public School Board and County Superintend- 
ent as district common schools. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

As long ago as 1850 a law was passed for the organization of Dallas 
county, the territory of which lies mostly in this valley and drained by 
the Red Cedar. Aside from its wealth of pine timber, much of the soil 
is very rich, which of late has induced many farmers to avail thamselves 
of the homestead law and secure homes there. It was at first included 
in the eleventh judicial district, but subsequently, in 1865, was attached 
to the eighth, and in 1868, after several modifications of its boundaries, 
its name was changed to Barron, and it was attached to Dunn for judi- 
cial purposes until 1872, when it was detached therefrom and the year 
following organized for judicial purposes ; the first term of court, how- 
ver, was held in October last, 1874, but as there were no jury cases on 
the calendar, we may infer that the settlers up there are very peacea- 
ble. 

Knapp, Stout & Co. have a mill at the outlet of Rice Lake, where a 
flourishing village has started up, and where, until recently, the county 
offices and the courts have been held, but by a vote of the electors lately 
taken, the county seat is removed to Quaderer's camp, some sis or eight 
miles west and north of the former place. 

Considerable dissatisfaction exists at this result, and the probability is 
that its removal is only a question of time, as several of the county offi- 
cers refuse to recognize the decision of the vote. 

The prejudice against the aforesaid company induced the settlers to 
vote for the removal, but this will probably soon die out and harmony be 
restored. 

An important decision has just been rendered in the Supreme Court in 
suit brought by several non-resident holders of land in this county to set 
aside the sale of certain land for taxes, on account of illegality in their 
assessment. Held, that the assessment and sale was informal and void. 

A portion of the lands donated by Congress, in 1856, for the benefit 
of the St. Croix & Lake Superior, now known as the North "Wisconsin, 
Hailway, lies in this county, and being drained by the Red Cedar, some 



lB6 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

of them have suffered from the depredations of loggers, for which suits 
are now pending to recover damages. 

Repeated efforts have been made in the legislature, by the non-resident 
proprietors of lands in Chippewa county, to create a new county there- 
from, comprising the pine lands, with a view to lighten the burdens of 
taxation, but so far such attempts have proved fruitless, owing, probably, 
to the fact that the resident population oppose the project. Fraught, as 
the present arrangement apparently is, with injustice, it, nevertheless, 
has its advantages in the laying out and opening roads through wild, un- 
inhabited districts, so necessary to the lumbermen in getting supplies to 
their camps. A wise provision has been made by act of the legislature 
in granting ten per cent, of the proceeds from the sale of swamp lands 
in the county to construct bridges and open leading highways, which has 
been of essential benefit both to lumbermen and settlers on the soil, most 
of whom are homesteaders. It has been noticed, however, that for a 
road to derive any of these advantages, the lower terminus must be Chip- 
pewa Falls. A State road, authorized by the legislature in 1868, ex- 
tending from Eau Claire, via Bloomer, to Ashland, is utterly ignored by 
the County Board of that county, not even the cost of laying it out be- 
ing allowed to the commissioners appointed for that purpose. This is 
perfectly natural, and there may have been some irregularity in the sur- 
vey or report to justify its action. 

Many of the upper branches of the Chijjpewa are crossed by the line 
of the Central Railway, which, \vhea completed, will dsvelop extensive 
settlements, and it is hoped may open large mining operations in that 
portion of this valley. Loggers already find that road very convenient 
in transporting their men and supplies, and steam mills are going up near 
the track as fast as the road is completed. 

The completion of this road and the North Wisconsin, obliquely cross- 
ing as they do the northeastern and northwestern sections of our valley, 
may develop its resources but will necessarily divert much of the trade 
and profit to other centers of business, which it seems as though the peo- 
ple of this valley ought to have secured. 

Railways, too, have proved terribly destructive to pine timber wherever 
crossed by their tracks, as no method has yet been devised to prevent 
sparks [from the locomotive setting fire to combustible material, as it 
speeds along on its course. 

These and the steam mills will undoubtedly destroy large tracts of our 
most valuable timber, and it will be much to be deplored if some of the 
railroads now contemplated shall pierce and destroy the pine forests whose 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 167 

destruction is already menaced, but which can be only accomplished by 
the agency of fire. The organization of two new counties may be ex- 
pected to follow the completion of the Central Railroad, fifty-five miles 
of which are still unfinished. A branch road from a point called the El- 
bow to Chippewa Falls is contemplated, which time and enterprise may 
eventually accomplish ; and from thence to intersect the North Wiscon- 
sin at some point in Barron county, with the Chippewa Valley road ex- 
tended to the Mississippi, would place that city in a mcs' enviable situa- 
tion in regard to railway communication, without ttreatening any serious 
danger to the pine timber, in whose preservation every inhabitant of the 
Great West should feel an interest. True, it is now being cut off with 
alarming rapidity, but fire alone can stop its growth, and a healthy forest 
of pine timber may be cut over every ten years, if f r>3 c.iu be kept out. 

There are extensive tracts of pine and hemlock timber that are and 
always will be utterly useless for cultivation, but being covered with 
thrifty growing timber will always be valuable, unless fires break out and 
consume them. 

A growing forest of towering pine timber is one of the grandest sights 
in the world, and a standing monument of God's goodness and provident 
care, and next to the grasses and spontaneous fruit-bearing trees and 
shrubs, is, of all inanimate things, the most cdnvenient and valuable, as 
so much ready capital to be appropriated by labor to human wants ; mines 
of gold and silver offer tempting prizes as the reward of the toiler, and 
the rich virgin soil of the prairies promises abundant returns for the hus- 
bandman's labor, but none of these yield results so surely and in so little 
time — are not so immediately available — as a pine forest out of which to 
hew a fortune ; hence, while the supply lasts, we may expect the busi- 
ness to be overdone. 

Scientific experiment, inventive genius, and tireless energy have fur- 
nished facilities so ample and machinery so comp'e'e fcr the manufacture 
of lumber, performing an amount of labor so vast, so skillfully, and with 
such celerity, that it would seem that the supply of pine must be infinite 
or very soon fail. 

A' few examples will show the difference between the old and new ma- 
chinery and methods in the manufacture of lumbar. 

The best work ever done by H. S. Allen & Co. with tl e old process 
and machinery — the mills having been enlarged since by the addition of 
only one small gang — produced a little over seventeen million feet of 
lumber during the season ; now, with the same power but with new 
wheels, improved saws, and the most superior machinery produced by 



168 ^ CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

modern invention, the Union Lumbering Company annually turn out 
forty-five million feet of lumber of superior manufacture. Rotary and 
gang saws, patent log turners, self-setting carriages, machines for boring 
grub-planks, saw setters and saw filers, with many other labor-saving ap- 
pliances are employed, and driven by this splendid water-power. 

Experience has shown that lumber can not be manufactured and sent 
to market from mills above Chippewa Falls, so as to compete with mills 
lower down on the river, and one after another has succumbed to the un- 
equal and adverse circumstances, until scarcely a crib of lumber passes 
over the raft-slides of the three great dams at the Falls, Paint Creek, 
and Eagle Rapids. What use may yet be made of the vast power which 
these two upper dams afi"ord, time alone can determine ; but so long as 
lumber must be rafted and run to market, the water power of the lower 
dam, at the Falls, will probably be used for its manufacture. 

The city of Chippewa Falls is the headquarters for a very large share 
of the lumber, or rather logging, operations on the Chippewa ; its future 
prosperity depends largely upon the permanence and stability of the 
booming works at Paint Creek and Eagle Rapids — works of immense 
strength, but the river is every where hemmed in between high banks, 
affording scarcely a cove, pocket, or lagoon where logs can lie safe out of 
the surging current, and have not been tested by such floods as have 
heretofore swept away in a day the earnings of years. Should these 
works prove efl&cient against such dangers, few localities in the Northwest 
occupy so commanding a position as the city of Chippewa Falls. Its cit- 
izens are noted for pluck, energy, and boundless confidence in the future 
greatness of their city. 

No place, perhaps, has been so unfortunate in the destruction of its 
best hotels by fire. The first one, a large, three-story structure, erected 
in 1856, by H. S. Allen & Co., was destroyed two or three years later, 
rebuilt by Mr. Sellers in 1862, took the name Tremont in 1865, under 
the proprietorship of Messrs. Pierce & Upham, — men who know how to 
keep a hotel — shared the fate of the former in 1870, and the following 
summer saw a splendid five-story brick palace go up on the same site. It 
was erected by Messrs. Pierce, Upham, and William R. Hoyt, Esq., at 
an expense of more than one hundred thousand dollars, contained over 
eighty rooms, was lighted with gas and heated by steam, too costly and 
extravagant in all its appointments for such a place at that time, and 
T?hen finished had completely bankrupted its projectors, and the property 
^eing sold by the assignee, came into the possession of George Winans, 
lOrmerly a Mississippi raft pilot, who took possession of the house him- 



CPHIPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 169 

self and probably would have made it a success in time, but during his 
absence in the winter of 18.73 the fire fiend was let loose and this grand 
structure, the pride of the whole valley, fell a prey to its fury. Its loss 
was very much deplored, and it will long live in the memory of the peo- 
ple of this part of the State, as the scene of a very pleasant gathering 
in the winter of 1871-2, of the old settlers of the northwestern part of 
the State. It will probably never be rebuilt. Soon after, the Water- 
man House shared the same fate, but, phoenix-like, it has risen up from 
its ashes, and with the Central, run by the old indomitable firm of Pierce 
& Upham, and some new houses of lesser note, affords very good hotel 
accommodations to the city and business community. 

In addition to the vast water-power afforded by the Chippewa, numer- 
ous dams have been erected on Duncan's creek, and two large flouring 
mills and two planing mills are in successful operation on this stream, 
owned respectively by H. S. Allen, McRae Brothers, and S. M. Newton 
&Co. 

Besides many large business blocks and elegant private residences, the 
city boasts of having the most imposing court house in the valley, erected 
in 1873-4 at a cost of $75,000. 

Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, and Catholic churches, and two 
commodious graded school buildings, also adorn the city. The soil of the 
surrounding country is generally fertile, and is being rapidly settled by 
thriving farmers, who find an excellent home market for all their produce 
In the city. 

Two weekly newspapers are published here. The Herald, published 
by Col. Ginty, is ably conducted, is the exponent of Kepnblican princi- 
ples, and has the public patronage. The other, called the Avalanche, is 
owned by an association and edited, at present, by a gentleman named 
HoUister. Its politics are Conservative. 

With all these and many other advantages, with its present and pros- 
pective railroad facilities, and the growing importance of its commerce, 
the city of Chippewa Falls undoubtedly has a grand future before it. A 
thriving tributary village has started up in the town of Bloomer, knowa 
heretofore as Vanville, but lately changed to Bloomer. 

Messrs. Smith, Brooks & McCauley have a flouring mill, saw mill, and 
shingle mill there, driven by Duncan's creek. The village is fourteen 
miles from the city, has a Congregational church, and a commodious 
graded school house. 

In all that pertains to thrift and progress, Dunn county, during and 
since the war, is not a whit behind the meat prosperous localities in the 



170 CHIPPBWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

northwestern part of the State. An intelligent, enterprising farming 
population have secured homes in the fertile portions of tho county, and 
many beautiful rural residences ara seen in every township, and the vil- 
lage of Menomonie has an imposing court house, two Baptist and two 
Methodist Episcopal churches, one Congregational, one Catholic, one 
Lutheran Scandinavian, and an Episcopal church edifice in process of 
erection, two model graded school houses, and a great many beautiful 
private residences In addition to their saw mills, the company of 
Knapp, Stout & Co. have an extensive flouring mill, a very large and com- 
modious slaughter and packing house, and are extensively engaged in 
farming in the neighborhood of the village. 

At Red Cedar falls, six miles above Menomonie, S. A. Jewett & Co. 
have a saw mill, and auite a village has sprung up around it. The mill 
was erected by the Gilbert brothers, from Gilbert's creek, just before the 
commencement of the late war. The present owners purchased a con- 
siderable amount of pine land on the tributaries of the Red Cedar in 
1855-6, and have enlarged the mill to a second-class establishment. Its 
capacity is about eight millions per annum. Mr. Jewett is from Bangor, 
Maine, and is connected with the banking house of Jewett & March, of 
that city. 

One newspaper, the Dunn County News, is published at Menomonie. 
It was started in 1859, by S. C. and E. B. Bundy, with the title of 
Dunn County Lumberman, and is now published by Hon. R. G. Flint. 
It is a sound Republican journal, and fully up with the times in all that 
relates to the welfare of the county and village. 

The Barron County Chronotype is a new paper just established in 
that county, by S. C Carpenter, but is now published by R. F. Wilson, 
H. C. Putnam, and Knapp, Stout & Co. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

So important a public measure as the passage of the "Dalles bill," in 
the shape of an amendment to the charter of the city of Eau Claire, 
and becoming a law just at this time, has induced 'the author to extend 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 171 

this work so as to give a brief account of the contest in the legislature 
to secure its enactment, provisions of the law, and its relations to the 
business interest of the valley. 

The law simply authorizes the city of Eau Claire in its corporate 
capacity, to erect a dam sixteen feet high across the Chippewa river, to 
place piers, booming and sorting works in the river, at suitable points, 
and to lease the water power and works to responsible parties, and binds 
the city to make and operate free of charge a lock for the passage of 
steamboats, a safe and suitable raft slide for two strings in width of rafts 
over the dam, and unobstructed raft channel past the booming works at 
all times, and to pay all damages incurred by any and all parties from 
the erection of these works. 

As the city of Eau Claire is a responsible party, and abundantly able 
to indemnify all parties for such loss if any were sustained, it seems as 
though no objection could be urged against the measure on that account ; 
and so it must have appeared to the members of the legislature, and the 
executive of the State as the bill passed both houses, and became a law 
within two weeks after its introduction. 

The personal popularity of our Senator and Assemblyman, Messrs. 
Grraham and Callahan, undoubtedly did much to insure the passage of 
the bill, an efficient lobby was also on the ground, and the audacity of 
the Eagle Rapids bill which provided, had it become a law for that in- 
stitution to collect ten cents per thousand feet for all logs passing that 
point, may have roused some interested parties in other parts of the 
State, who in a spirit of retaliation favored the claims of Eau Claire in 
this contest ; but more potent and above all was the conviction through- 
out the State, that the interest and welfare of the people demanded the 
law. This conviction has been gaining ground ever since the first agita- 
tion of the subject, and it has now found public expression in this enact- 
ment. The people of Eau Claire seem very much in earnest in this 
matter, and will probably vote any amount of bonds neccessary to carry 
out the objects authorized by the law, and it is hoped that all opposition 
to so beneficent a work will cease. 

Whatever cause for alarm or uneasiness, any party may entertain in 
regard to losses likely to be inflicted upon their interests by these opera- 
tions, one very favorable aspect of the case is observed in the fact that 
all the mills between the Dalles and Chippewa Falls, manifest no opposi- 
tion, but are rather favorable to the projected improvement. 

The aggregate amount of lumber annually manufactured at these mills, 
is greater than the quantity made at the Falls, and if any real danger 



172 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

were apprehended to their interests by the constructioa of these works, 
it would seem as though all would make common cause against it. These 
mills have been erected at great expense, and their success, and even their 
existence is just as much imperiled as the mills at the Falls, and yet 
their owners appear very well pleased at the prospect of these improve- 
ments. 

As some of these establishments have received no attention m these 
pages a brief reference to each may not be out of place here. 

In the summer of 1867, Ed. Coleman and James Mitchell, two enter- 
prising young men at the Falls, erected a steam saw mill, and the neces- 
sary booming works at French Town, which after several assignments is 
now run in the interest of A. K. Shaw & Co.; it is a good little mill. 
Then comes the Gravel Island Mill, commenced in 1857, by Martin 
Daniels and Ephraim E. Shaw, and completed the year following by 
Bussy & Taylor, who established booming works above the Island ; it 
was burnt in the fall of 1863, and rebuilt the year following by James 
A. Taylor. It is favorably situated three miles below the Falls, and is 
a very good mill, now run by a company of enterprising Frenchmen, 
under the firm name of the French Lumber Company. It lacks some of 
the latest improvements in mill machinery. The mill frequently referred 
to as the "Blue Mills," first erected in 1842-3, was after many vicissi- 
tudes taken down in 1864, and a large establishment driven partly by 
steam, (the first was propelled by a spring creek), erected in its place 
by H. Clay Williams & John Barron. A nice arrangement for elevating 
the logs by water power from the river into the mill pond, where they 
are safe from freshets and danger, has since been added. 

The capacity of this mill is from twelve to fifteen millions for the sea- 
son, has most of the late improvements in machinery, and is now owned 
by a corporation with the title of " Badger State Lumber Company." 
A lath, shingle mill and pail factory are connected with this mill. 

Three miles below is the LaFayette mill, erected in 1868-4, by 
Charles Coleman, of Chippewa Falls, its capacity is about the same as 
the Badger State Mill, has ample storage booms, and convenient sorting 
works, and is now owned and operated by John and George Robson, of 
Winona. A terrible boiler explosion occurred at this mill in the summer 
of 1869, by which one man was fatally and others badly injured. Two 
miles lower down is the Wheaton Mill, built in 1869-70, by Ira Mead, 
Frank McGuire, Saul & Lally, capable of cutting six million feet per 
season. It is now run by the two latter gentlemen. These are all in 
Chippewa county. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 173 

Two miles below are the mills of Prescott, Burditt & Co., first erected 
in 1867-8, rebuilt and greatly enlarged in 1873-4, by the same com- 
pany. The company of Graham, White & Co., own a controlling inter- 
est in this mill, and it is complete in all its appointments. Its annual 
cut is from ten to fifteen millions. The Wilkins Island Booming Works 
accomodate this mill ; it is erected on the East Side, and nearly opposite 
is the mill built by Mr. Farwell, and now owned by W. T. Weber. And 
one mile below on the same side is the famous, but now idle mill, erected 
in 1863-4, by Horton & Van Buren, Barron, and H. Clay AVilliams, 
subsequently sold to Nelson, Hunter & Co. It is near this mill that the 
raft channel cut-off is to be excavated, which will shorten the running 
distance for rafts more than two miles, and leave the river for more than 
that distance as a safe reservoir for logs. The mill and peninsular tract 
of land belonging to it are now owned by various parties amongst whom 
is the Union Lumber Company of Chippewa Falls. 

Then right at the head or upper entrance of the Dalles, is the Eddy 
Mill, of Ingram & Kennedy, commenced in 1860, by A. M. & S. Sherman, 
the former of whom entered the army, and the work lingered, and after 
a sickly existence was sold in 1869, to the present enterprising firm who 
moved and rebuilt the mill on its present site the year following, and 
made it one of the best mills on the river. All the last named mills are 
within the limits of the city of Eau Claire, but with the exception of 
the last will continue to use and depend upon the Eagle Rapids Boom to 
store a considerable share of their logs, even after the works are com- 
pleted at the Dalles. 

The report of Colonel Farquhar, of the United States Engineers, late- 
ly submitted to the War Department, of a survey made last summer by 
his assistant, Captain Turner, recommends the erection of dams and 
locks at the foot of both the lower and upper Dalles, as the only way to 
improve the navigation of the river at those points, and if the provisions 
of the law are eff"ectually carried out by the city in the erection of these 
works, navigation of the river will be greatly improved, as now, in low 
water, it is with much difficulty that a single string of lumber can be 
navigated over the tortuous, shallow channel, and too frequently, for the 
owner's profit or the pleasure of the crew, sticks fast on the rocks and 
must be taken off in separate cribs, with handspikes. Raftsmen will 
have occasion to rejoice when relieved from this hardship. 

Substantial manufacturing establishments will undoubtedly follow the 
completion of these works, and a reservoir for logs absolutely safe from 
the highest flood, will mark the improvement as the best investment and 



174 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

the grandest enterprise of the kind in the valley — because Nature has 
planned the situation for just such an undertaking, and during all these 
years has invited man's handiwork to make it available. 

The mills below the Dalles to be benefitted by this work are two owned 
by Ingram & Kennedy, one by the Valley Lumber Company, a corpora- 
tion, one run by Tarrant Brothers & Bletcher, one by J. P. Pinkum & 
Co., one by the Daniel Shaw Lumber Corapan)% a corporation, one b}* 
W. B. Esterbrooks, one by Boyd & Randall, one by Gorton Brothers, 
one by the Northwestern Lumber Company, and several others lower 
down on the river. One of the two first named was built by Adin Ran- 
dall, in 1858, came into the possession of Stephen Marston some time af- 
terward, who finally sold it to the present owners. It was the third mill 
started by Mr. Randall, all near the connecting chute to Half Moon 
Lake. The other was erected by the present owners and Mr. Dole, in 
1857-8, was the second steam mill erected in this valley, was destroyed 
by fire in 1861, was rebuilt and enlarged immediately, and has been one 
of the most successful establishments on the river. It was the first to 
introduce the improved patent sawdust carrier and distributor; an in- 
vention that substitutes the sawdust made by a steam mill almost exclu- 
sively for other fuel. 

The third one named was commenced by Adin Randall in 1857, sold 
to and completed by Ball & Smith, the former of whom sold his interest 
to Gr. A. Buffington, since which time it has been operated by the firm 
of Smith & Buffington until this winter, 1874, when the new comjiany, 
composed of the last named firm and Carson & Rand, of Eau Galla, an 
organized corporation, removed the old mill and are erecting on its site 
one of the largest steam mills in this valley. Their millwright is the 
well known Grcorge Barton, who has superintended the laying the foun- 
dations and every part of it, and intends to make it one of the most com- 
plete mills in all its appointments in the northwest. The company has a 
paid up capital of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars already invest- 
ed in the undertaking, Mr Pond's improved setting and dogging ap- 
paratus, and a newly invented log turner, are amonst the imjjrovcd ma- 
chinery of this mill. Martin Daniels, Bangs & Fish, and R. F. Wilson 
built the mill now operated by tlie Tarrant Brothers, in 1866-7, which, 
by sume means, lias been involved in more legal difficulties than any other 
on the river, but is a good mill and the present proprietors will probably 
extricate it from all its troubles. 

At the outlet of Half Moon Lake stands the mill of the Daniel Shaw 
Lumber Company, the site for which was selected in 1856, before the in- 



I 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 175 

troduction of steam mills on the Chippewa. Unable to overcopie the 
difficulties involved in building at the Dalles, Mr. Shaw located here as 
the next best point, resolved to await future developments. 

Half Moon Lake is a safe reservoir for logs, but the uncertainty of 
getting them in there makes it an important matter to secure other means 
of storing their logs. The mill was burnt in 1867 and rebuilt the year 
following by the present able company, composed of Daniel Shaw, Mr. 
B alien, Mr. Newell, and Mr. Furgerson, who became incorporated in 
1874. Their mill is one of the most extensive and substantial in the 
valley, with all the new improvements in machinery, and its capacity is 
over twenty million feet per season. A steam flouring mill has lately been 
erected by the company. The two next named mills have scarcely any 
booming privileges, and will find their property very much enhanced in 
value by the completion of the new works at the Dalles. 

The Northwestern Lumber Company's mill occupies the site of the mill 
commenced by Charles Warner and completed by Porter & Brown in 
1864, consumed by fire in the fall of 1867, rebuilt and enlarged by Mr. 
Porter, who subsequently associated D. K. Moon with him in the busi- 
ness. The establishment is hardly excelled by any in the country, com- 
bining farming, merchandizing, and various smaller manufactories with 
that of lumber. The company's business office is in this city, and con- 
nected with the mill six miles below by a telegraph wire. All these mills 
have suffered for want of storage for logs, and have sometimes seen al- 
most the season's supply float past them to the Mississippi, because no 
safe reservoir could be provided. 

In April, 1866, occurred one of those destructive freshets, bringing 
down jams of ice, logs, and drift-wood in such force as to carry away 
booms, piers, and all other obstructions that interfered with the swollen, 
uncontrollable flood. The entire Chippewa bottom was overflowed and 
covered with logs and drift-wood. There was no Beef Slough boom, 
then, and the delta of the river, and even many islands in the Mississippi, 
were piled with logs, and such quantities deposited on the intervening 
Chippewa bottoms, that several of our mill men established portable 
steam mills to manufacture them into lumber. I need hardly add that 
conflicting claims to those logs involved several of their owners in legal 
difficulties so complicated and tedious that they seemed like permanent 
fixtures on the Circuit Court calendar. From the effects of this, and al- 
most every other, destructive freshet, Knapp, Stout & Co., of Menomo- 
nie, and Chapman & Thorp, of Eau Claire, escaped, simply because safe, 
secure reservoirs for logs had been created near their mills, by over- 



176 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

flowing low, flat basins, and taking the logs entirely out of the current, 
but no such place of safety had been provided on the Chippewa, and to- 
day we should find it little better, for I venture the prediction that the 
works at Eagle Rapids would not stand one hour against such a flood. 
My reasons are that the river directly above the "jam boom" is hemmed 
in between jjerpendicular walls of rock, and the Chippewa is one of the 
maddest, most ungovernable streams in the world. 

Reposing in such continual security, it is not surprising that the last 
named companies have gone on in the even tenor of their way and accu- 
mulated great wealth, while others are involved in heavy liabilities. It 
is true the latter came with considerable capital, but it is because they 
availed themselves of the natural advantages of their position that they 
achieved success. Their first steam mill, erected during the hard trying 
times of 1857-8, was consumed by fire in 1867, but replaced the next 
year by one of the most complete mills in the State ; their water power 
mill on the same site occupied by McCann & Randall's mill, and carried 
away by the flood of 1847, was rebuilt in 1871, its capacity quadrupled 
by the introduction of the LefFel turbine wheel, and all the modern im- 
provements, among the most valuable of which are several inventions of 
L. W. Pond, an improved method of hanging and fastening gang saws, 
a machine for setting and dogging on circular saw carriage, and many other 
improvements in mill machinery by this inventor have been adopted. 

A steam shingle mill and merchant flouring mill of large capacity, also 
a new and costly store to replace the one destroyed by fire in 1874, have 
been added to this company's city property, while title to a large amount 
of pine land has been secured. 

The business operations of the Menomonie and Eau Galla companies 
have been heretofore set forth in these pages. Mr. Carson, of the lat- 
ter, has already invested considerable capital at the Falls and in this city, 
and Knapp, Stout & Co., it is confidently expected, will invest largely 
in the new works at the Dalle?. In addition to the manufacturing es- 
tablishments already mentioned, there are several in the country around 
about. Hazen & Son have an excellent flouring mill on Otter creek ; 
Peter Daniels and John Kelly are running each a good grist mill on 
Lowo's creek ; Bump Brothers run the mill at Rock Falls, erected by 
Weston & Chamberlain ; Mud creek. Elk creek, and Sand creek have 
each a grist mill, and many small steam saw mills arc scattered about up 
the Eau Claire and Chippewa rivers. 

Three good bridges for travel, one in Eau Claire and two at Chippewa 
Falls, also a railroad bridge at the former place, span the Chippewa ; 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 177 

public highways have been opened in every direction ; elegant churches 
and school buildings are seen in every neighborhood, and all the elements 
of progress, comfort, convenience, and the refinements of Christian civ- 
ilization have been developed in this country. Our interests are really 
one and inseparable ; here is room for all and free scope for all our en- 
ergies, and no occasion for envy or sectional bitterness ; the few cannot 
expect to monopolize the advantages that belong of right to the many. 
The conflict between different localities is more ima-iiinary than real, and 
the sooner kind and fraternal relations are establislicu, the better it will 
be for our varied interests. 

On the eleventh day of May, 1875, the qualified voters of the city of 
Eau Claire, in accordance with the provisions of an ordinance passed by 
the City Council, submitting the question of bonding the city to carry 
the amendment into effect, voted almost unanimously to issue bonds to 
the amount of one hundred thousand dollars for that purpose But par- 
ties at Chippewa Falls having obtained a writ of injunction, in the name 
of the Attorney General, from the Supreme Court, restraining the gov- 
ernment of said city from issuing such bonds and from constructing any 
of the works contemplated by said amendment, the case came up for ar- 
gument before said Court on the 18th and 19th days of May, 1876, and 
the injunction was sustained on the grounds that the Chippewa river 
is a navigable stream and a public highway, secured by treaty of cession 
and constitutional provisions ; and that the city of Eau Claire, as a mu- 
nicipality, could not legally and constitutionally become a booming and 
manufacturing organization, such as the law contemplated. 

It may be that the legal impediments that stand in the way of this 
great improvement will effectually prevent its constrjiction, but its neces- 
sity was never more apparent than at this moment, as the breaking up 
of the ice in the Chippewa this spring completely demolished the booming 
and assorting works at Eagle Rapids, and more or less injured all the es- 
tablishments of the kind on the river, and such will probably be the fate 
of those and all others until some place is adopted where logs can be taken 
out of the current and made secure in some overflowed marsh or bayou, 
and no locality on the river can ever vie with the great basin just above 
the lower Dalles, in natural facilities for such a work. 



178 CHIPPEWA TALLEY HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



In the E?ttlement of all new countries frequent changes become neces- 
sary in the organization of Senatorial and Assembly districts, and ques- 
tions often arise in conversation as to the number or description of the 
dbtrict in which a certain locality was included at a given period. 

Such changes have occurred in the districts in which this valley is sit- 
uated at every decade and semi-decade since the organization of the Ter- 
ritory, and a concise statement of the districts in which our valley has 
been included, time of their formation, and the various Senators and As- 
semblymen whom the people have delighted to honor with seats in our 
Legislature, may be of interest to my readers. 

But in the first place, a short account of the organization of the Ter- 
ritorial and State governments will claim our attention. 

The name, "Wisconsin, first of our Territory and since of the State, 
was derived from its principal river, Wees-kon-san, signifying in Indian, 
"The gathering of the water. s" It contains 53,924 square miles, or 
nearly 35,000,000 acres of land, beside rivers, lakes, etc. 

The act establishing the Territorial government was passed and ap 
proved April 20th, 1836, and its organization followed on the 4th of 
July following, with Henry Dodge, one of the heroes of the Sac and Fox 
war, for Governor. What is now the State of Iowa constituted part of 
this Territory, but in accordance with the proclamation of the Governor, 
the first Legislature convened at Belmont, now in La Fayette county. 
The second session was at Burlington, Iowa, after which the seat of gov- 
ernment was permai|Bntly located at Madison, where the first session of 
the second Legislative Assembly met Nov. 26th, 1838, the Territory 
having been divided, by act of Congress, in June previous. 

As usual in such cases, the general government made an appropriation 
of forty thousand dollars for the capitol building and other sums were 
given by Dane county and the Territory equal to twenty thousand dol- 
lars more, and a very sumptuous liouse was erected. As indicating the 
times of that early day, a quotation from the Legislative Manual of 1874, 
as given by Col. Childs, one of the early pioneers of the Territory, will 
.amuse the reader. 

He says :"The Legislature met for the first time at Madison on the 
26th of November, 1838. The new capitol edifice was not yet in a suit- 
able condition to receive the Legislature, so we had to as.semble in the 
basement of the American House, where Governor Dodge delivered hia 
first message at the new seat of government. 



CUIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 179 

"After some time, vre took posse -Nsion of the ne,v Assembly hall, the 
■floors of which were laid with green uak boards full of ice ; the walls of 
the room were iced over ; green oak seats and desks, luade of rough 
boards ; one fire-place and one small stove. In a few days the flooring 
near the stove and fire-place shrank so that one could run his hands be- 
tween the boards. The basement story was all open and James Morri- 
son's large drove of hogs had taken possession ; they were awfully poor, 
and it would have taken two of them standing side by side to make a de- 
cent shado'V on a bright day. We had a great many smart members in 
the House, and sometimes they spoke for buncombe. When members of 
this ilk would become too tedious, I would take a long polo and 
go at the hogs and stir them up, when they would raise a young pande- 
monium for noise and confusion. The speaker's voice would be com- 
pletely drowned, and he would be compelled to stop ; not, however, 
without giving his squealing disturbers a sample of his swearing ability. 

>l< * 5)5 * 

"The American House was the only hotel in Madison, but Mr. Peck 
kept a few boarders in his log house, and we used to have tall times in 
those days — times to be remembered. Stealing was carried on in a small 
way, and the Territory would occasionally get gouged a little, now and 
then." 

The Territorial government continued from the time before stated, 
July 4th, 1836, until the 29th day of May, 1848, nearly twelve years. 

Until the year 1840, the entire northwestern portion'of the- Territory 
was included in Crawford dounty, and of course the settlements on this 
river ; represented the first year, 1836, in the House by James H. Lock- 
wood and James B. Dallam, no member of the Council being allowed ; 
and the second year by Ira B. Brunson and Jean Brunett. 

The first session of the second Legislative Assembly convened and ad- 
journed in 1838 ; in the Council, Crawford was represented for the first 
time by George Wilson, and in the House by Alexander McGregor, who 
established a ferry across the Mississippi and founded the city of Mc- 
Gregor, in Iowa. The next year, second session of the second Legisla- 
ture, Ira B. Brunson was added to the House from Crawford. 

At the third session of the second Assembly, 1839-40, Joseph Bris- 
bois was elected to the Council, Wilson having resigned. St. Croix coun- 
ty was established at the extra session of this Legislature, Charles J. 
Learned having t^ken the place of Brisbois in the Council. 

At the first session of the third Assembly, Crawford and S^ Gxoix be- 
ing still one district, Mr. Learned was in the Co»iicil, and Alfred Bruu- 



180 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

son (the Kev. Dr.) and Joseph R. Brown weremembers of the House, 
but at the next session 1841-2, the seat of the former was successfully 
contested by and awarded to Theophilus La Chappelle. 

The first and second sessions of the fourth Legislative Assembly, 
1842-3-4, found this district the same, with Mr. La Chappelle in the 
Council, and John H. Manahan in the House, and at the third session of 
the fourth Assembly, 1845, Wiram Knowlton was Councilman, and Jas. 
Fisher in the House, for Crawford and St. Croix. At this session acts 
were passed to organize the counties of Chippewa and La Pointe, but the 
four counties still constituted one district, and in the fourth session of 
the fourth Assembly, 1846, were represented by the same parties, 
Knowlton in the Council and Fisher in the House. 

Benjamin F. Manahan, afterward a prominent lumberman on O'Neil's 
creek, in Chippewa county, was member of the Council and Joseph W. 
Furber of the House, during the first session of the fifth Assembly. 
1847, from this district, the same four counties, but for the special ses- 
sion Henry Jackson was in the House. The same members were in the 
Council and House for the second and last session, 1848. 

On the 5th day of October, 1846, the first Constitutional Convention 
assembled and submitted the result of its deliberations to the people, 
who rejected it on the first Tuesday of April, 1847. Peter A. R. Brace, 
of Crawford county, and James P. Hays, of La Pointe county, were 
members from this district ; and Chippewa and Crawford counties were 
represented in the second Convention by Daniel G, Fcnton. Its wisdom 
was embodied in our present State Constitution and submitted to the peo- 
ple for their adoption on the second Monday of March, 1848, a large ma- 
jority voting for it. 

Under the Constitutional apportionment, the four counties of Craw- 
ford, Chippewa, St. Croix, and La Pointe, composed the Third Sena- 
torial District, and the counties of Crawford and Chippewa made an As- 
sembly district. The State was also divided into two Congressional dis- 
tricts, the second embracing all the western portion and of course 
this valley. Five Judicial districts were also created by the same instru- 
ment, and the fifth comprised about one-half of the territory of the 
State, including Crawford county, to which Chippewa was attached for 
judicial purposes. 

This arrangement of the various Senatorial, Assembly, and Congress- 
ional districts continued until 1853, nearly fcur years. vVhere then were 
the great populous counties of La Crosse, Monroe, and Vernon, now so 
potent in directing ths political destinies of the State, the territory of 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 181 

•which, with half a dozen other counties, lay between Crawford and 
Chippewa ? 

D. Gr. Fenton was our first Senator, and Wm. T. Stirling the first to 
represent us in the Assembly of the State, which assembled, as before 
stated, on the fifth day of June, 1848 

But in 1849 we find James Fisher in the Senate and James CNeO, of 
Black River Falls, in the Assembly, the former for two years, and in 
1850 Mr. Stirling was elected to the Assembly. 

Hiram A. Wright, of Prairie du Chien, was on the floor of the Sen- 
ate for this wide-spread district for the next term, 1851-2, and Wm, T. 
Price (our Billy) the first year, and Andrew Briggs, of Bad Ax, the 
second year, in the Assembly. At the last session, 1852, the districts 
were reorganized, and we find ourselves in the nineteenth Senatorial dis- 
trict, comprising the counties of Crawford, La Crosse, Bad Ax, Chip- 
pewa, St. Croix, and La Point. Chippewa and La Crosse constituted an 
Assembly district. 

This arrangement continued four years, during which time Hon. Ben- 
jamin Allen, of Pepin, was in the Senate the first term, 1853-4, and W- 
J. Gibson, of Black River Falls, for the next, 1855-6, and in the As- 
sembly for 1853 we find Albert B. La Due, of La Crosse; 1854, Wm. 
J. Gibson ; 1855, Chase A. Stevens, of La Crosse ; 1856, Bugald D. 
Cameron, of La Crosse. 

At the session of the last named year, the State was re-districted un- 
der the State census of 1855, and this valley is included in the twenty- 
eighth Senatorial district, composed of La Pointe, Douglass, Polk, (now 
Barron), St. Croix, Chippewa, Pierce, Dunn, Clark, and Burnett, while 
Clark, Chippewa, Eau Claire, Dunn, and Pierce made an Assembly dis- 
trict. 

Hon. Wm. Wilson, of Menomonie, was chosen the first Senator, for 
one year, 1857, Daniel Mears, of St. Croix, the second term, 1858-9, 
Charles B. Cox, River Falls, the third. 1860-61. 

And our Assemblymen for those years were, 1857, Orrin T. Maxon, 
Preseott ; 1858, Lucius Cannon, Pepin ; 1859, Richard Dewhurst, 
Neilsville; 1860, W. P. Bartlett, Eau Claire; 1861, Rodman Palmer, 
Chippew Falls. This was the fourteenth session of the State Legisla- 
ture, and being the year following the national census, a new organiza- 
tion of the districts was necessary, and the counties of Jackson, Clark, 
Trempealeau, Buffalo, Pepin, Eau Claire, Dunn, and Chippewa were in- 
cluded In the thirty-second Senatorial district, while Chippewa, Dunn, 
and Eau Claire made one, and Buffalo, Trempealeau, and Pepin another. 
Assembly district. 



182 CniPPEWA VALLEY UISTORT. 

Hon. M. D. Bartlett, of Durand, was chosen the first Senator in the 
thirty-second district, 1862-3; Carl C. Pope, Black Eiver Falls, for the 
next term, 1864-5 ; and for 1866-7, Hon. Joseph G. Thorp was elected. 
There was no change in this Senatorial district until 1871. A. W. 
Newman, Trempealeau, was our next Senator, 1868-9, and for the next 
term, 1870-71, Wm. T. Price, Black River FaUs. 

Our Assembly districts were represented as follows, during this period : 
Chippewa, Dunn, and Eau Claire : 1862, Horace W. Barnes, Eau 
Claire; 1863, AVm. H. Smith, Eau Galla ; 1864, Hon. Thadeus C. 
Pound, Chippewa Falls; 1865, Francis R. Church, Menomonic ; 1866, 
T. C. Pound, Chippewa Falls. Buffalo, Pepin, and Trempealeau : 1862, 
Orlando Brown, Grilmantown; 1863, Alfred W. Newman, Trempealeau; 
1864, Fayette Allen, Durand; 1865, John Burgess, Maxville ; 1866, 
Wm. H. Thomas, Sumner. 

At this session the Assembly districts were so remodeled that Pepin 
and Eau Claire constituted one district, and Chippewa and Dunn anoth- 
er. The latter was represented in 1867 by Thad. C. Pound, Chippewa 
Palls; 1868, Samuel W. Hunt, Menomonie ; 1869, T.C. Pound; 1870, 
Jedediah Granger, Menomonie ; 1871, James A. Bate. The former, in 
1867, by Fayette Allen, Durand ; 1868, Horace W. Barnes, Eau Claire; 
1869, Fayette Allen, Durand; 1870, Charles R. Gleason, Eau Claire; 
and 1871, Henry Cousins, Eau Claire. The apportionment of 1871 
made the counties embraced in this valley one Senatorial district, the 
thirtieth ; Chippewa, Dunn, Eau Claire, and Pepin ; while Chippewa 
and Eau Claire each constitute one Assembly district, and Pepin and 
Dunn another. Hon. Joseph G. Thorp, of Eau Claire, represented the 
thirtieth district in 1872-3, and Hon. Hiram P. Graham, of Eau Claire, 
in 1874-5. 

Chippewa county was represented in the Assembly in 1872 by John J. 
Jenkins ; 1873, Albert E. Pound ; 1874, James M. Bingham ; 1875, 
Thomas L. Halbert : all of Chippewa Falls. Eau Claire county was 
represented in 1872 by Rev. Bradley Phillips; 1873, Hon. Wm. Pitt 
Bartlett; 1874, Thos. Carmichael; 1875, Jonathan G. Calahan. Dunn 
and Pepin was represented in 1872 by Elias P. Bailey, of Menomonie ; 
1873, Horace E. Houghton; 1874, Samuel L. Plummer, of Waterville, 
Pepin county ; and in 1875 by R. G. Flint, editor of the Dnnn County 
News. 

The Blue Book, or Legislative Manual, abounds in valuable statistical 
and other information, and persons in possession of the consecutive num- 
bers as annually issued, could easily collate the facts contained in this 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 183 

chapter, but very few are so fortunate, and I therefore give a complete 
list of thti members of Congress from the several districts since the or- 
ganization of the State government. 

Until 1863 this valley was included in the second district, than for the 
next decade in the sixth, and since 1871 the counties of Chippewa, Dunn, 
and Barron have composed part of the eighth, and the remainder is in 
the seventh. 

REPRESENTATIVES IX CONGRESS SINCE THE ORGANIZATION OP THE 
STATE GOVERNMENT. 

30th Congress, 1847-49. 
(' (( 

31st Congress, 1849-51. 
(( (( 

32d G >ngress, 1851-53. 
(( (( 

(( (( 

33d Congress, 1853-55 

(t C( 

< • (< 

34th Congress, 1835-57. 
(( (< 

(( (( 

35th Congress, 1857-59. 

a a 

(( c( 

3Gth Congress, 1859-61 
<( (I 

li (( 

37th Congress, 1861-63. 
(( <( 

a (( 

(( (< 

38th Congress, 1863-65. 



39th Congress, 1865-87. 



1st District. 


Wm. Pitt Lynde.* 


2d 


Mason C. Darling.* 


1st 


Chas. Durkee. 


2d 


Orsamus Cole. 


3d 


Jas. D. Doty. 


1st 


Chas. Durkee. 


2d 


Ben. C. Eastman. 


3d 


John B. Macy. 


1st 


Daniel Wells, Jr. 


2d 


Ben. C. Eastman. 


3d 


John B. Macy. 


1st 


Daniel Wells, Jr. 


2d 


C. C. Washburn. 


3d 


Chas. Billinghurst. 


1st 


John F. Potter 


2d 


C. C. Washburn. 


3d 


Chas. Billinghurst. 


1st 


John F. Potter. 


2d 


C. C. Washburn. 


3d 


Chas. H. Larrabee. 


1st 


John F. Potter. 


2d 


Luther Hanchett.f 


2d 


Walter D. Mclndoe. 


3d 


A. Scott Sloan. 


1st " 


James S. Brown. 


2d 


Ithamar C. Sloan. 


3d 


Amasa Cobb. 


4th 


Chas. A. Eldredge. 


5th 


Ezra Wheeler. 


6th " 


Walter D. Mclndoe. 


1st 


H albert E. Paine. 



184 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

2d " Ithamar C. Sloan. '« " 

3d " Amasa Cobb. " . 

4tli '« Charles A. Eldredge. «' " 

5th '« Philetus Sawyer. " " 

6th " Walter D. Mclndoe. " " 

1st " Halbert E. Paine. 40th Congress, 1867-69. 

2d " Benj. F. Hopkins. " " 

3d " Amasa Cobb. " " 

4th " Chas. A. Eldredge. 

5th " Philetus Sawyer. 

6th '« C. C. Washburn, 

1st " Halbert E. Paine. 41st Congress, 1869-71. 

2d " Benj. F. HoiDkins.]: " " 

2d " David Atwood. 

3d '« Amasa Cobb. " " 

4th " Chas. A. Eldredge. 

5th " Philetus Sawyer. " " 

6th " C. C. Washburn. 

1st " Alex. Mitchell. 42d Congress, 1871-73. 

2d " Gerry W. Hazelton. " " 

3d " J. Allen Barber. " " 

4th " Chas. A. Eldredge. " " 

5th " Philetus Sawyer. " " 

6th " Jere. M. Ptusk. 

*Elected May 8th, and took their seats June 5th and 9th, 1848. 

tDied Nov. 24th, 1862, and W. D. Mclndoe elected to fill the va- 
cancy Dec. 30th, 1862. 

|Died Jan. 1st, 1870, and David Atwood elected for balance of term, 
Feb. 15th, 1870. 

Hon. J. M. Rusk was re-elected in 1872 for the 7th District, and 
Hon. Alex. S. McDillto rei)resent the 8th District in the 43d Congress. 

The 8th Judicial District has embraced all the counties of our valley 
since its organization in 1853, exeejit one year, 1861, when, by a strange 
freak of legislation, we were placed in the 12th District. It, the 8th, 
has been presided over by Hon. S. S. N. Fuller from 1854 to 1861, by 
Hon. L. P. Wetherby from 1861 to 1866, by Hon. H. L. Humphrey 
from 1866 to 1872, and re-elected for six years. 



CPHIPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 185 



CHAPTER XLIY. 

OUR PROMINENT MEN. 

In the preceding pages reference has been made to most, perhaps all, 
of the subjects of these sketches, nearly all of whom are still living and 
prominent actors in some department of life in this valley, and further 
notice of some of them may seem unnecessary or as involving repetition, 
but as the object in view is to exhibit the qualities that command success, 
as well as to pay a just tribute to the deserving, the reader will pardon 
the iteration. 

HIRAM S ALLEN 

Is undoubtedly the oldest settler and perhaps the only man now living 
in this valley who came here at the early period in which the subject of 
this notice came. He was born in Chelsea, Orange county, Vermont, in 
the year 1806, received such edacation as the common schools of that 
State afforded, and was reared in the business of lumbering, but soon 
conceived the idea that the one-horse establishments of that ancient State 
were inadequate to the realization of his hopes and aspirations, and in 
1833 resolved to try his fortunes in the far West ; came first to Illinois, 
and the year following up the Chippewa, and on the Red Cedar the year 
following bought the first mill ever erected in this valley of Street & 
Lockwood, and laid the foundation of a flourishing business and an ac- 
tive business life. He was identified with every public enterprise under- 
taken in this valley during the early days of hardship and trial — build- 
ing steamboats to navigate the shallow, ever-changing current of the 
Chippewa, opening roads to the Mississippi and establishing a stage line 
over the same, and as early as the year 1856 was mainly instrumental in 
fitting out a surveying party to locate a road to connect Chippewa Falls 
with Stevens' Point. It was run by Wm. J. Young, now of California, 
and ten miles of the route immediately opened for travel. He has al- 
ways had boundless faith in the future of Chippewa Falls, and to him 
more than any other one man is due the credit of building the railway 
last summer that now connects that place with the West Wisconsin rail- 
way. 

In politics, he was a Whig until the organization of the Republican 
party, since when he has uniformly acted wi'h that party ; has repeated- 
ly been urged to accept positions of trust and honor to which he could 



1S6 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

easily have been elected, but has constantly refused all political prefer- 
ment. 

In religion, though educated a Presbyterian, he is and always has 
been very liberal. 

LUKE INMAN. 

Cnotemporary with the earliest settlers was the humble individual whose 
name is here given. He represents a class, only a few of whom remain. 
Luke is an American by birth, and was for many years a soldier in the 
regnlar army of the United States ; was in Florida during all the long 
years of the Seminole war; was with General Atkinson and Colonel 
Zachary Taylor in the Black Hawk war, and repeats with much gusto 
the orders of the corpulent Colonel, at the battle of the Bad As, as he 
found himself unhorsed in a soft marsh and sinkins: to his waist in the 
mud : "Bear me up, boys, bear me up ; there, that'll do ; now give 'em 
hell ; don't let 'em cross the river ; kill 'em, damn 'em, kill 'em !" Luke 
tells some curious stories about himself and other soldiers while stationed 
at Prairie du Chien. Whiskey being strictly forbidden by the officers, 
he and others had very frequent occasion to get permission to wash their 
blankets at the river bank, near which was a saloon, and a Mackinav 
blanket, when thoroughly saturated, would absorb at least two gallons of 
the regular "red eye," and the whole mess^would be unfit for duty the 
whole day ; and for a long time the utmost vigilance of the officers was 
unable to detect the manner in which the liquor was obtained. Amongst 
others, Luke was sent up the Red Cedar for lumber, and having served 
his time out has made his home at some one of the mills here ever since, 
now more than forty years ; has always worked by the month, a faithful, 
trustworthy, unassuming man, always contented, and through all the 
many hard sieges to which he has been subjected as a soldier, boatman, 
raftman, or millman, he was never known to complain. Many laughable 
anecdotes are told by Luke and by others at his expense. In his young- 
er days he had been awakened at and participated in a religious revival, 
and amongst other exercises bad learned to sing many tunes appropriate 
to such occasions. During the first religious services held in this valley, 
Luke made himself useful by joining the choir, butjon one occasion, at a 
funeral service, he found himself almost alone but volunteered to raise 
the tune, which not being appropriate to the words, he bxoke'^down ; 
again and again he made the attempt, but finally gave it up with "h — 1, 
I used to sing that tune, but d — d if I can get it now." , Luke is a living 
monument of human endurance, having been lost in the Eau Galla woods 
in 1837 for seven days at one time without food. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 18T 

DANELIE DUCH, M. D., 

Was the first regular bred physician that settled on the Chippewa, 
and represents a class, though not numerous, to be found amongst the- 
pioneers of a new country. An Italian by birth but educated at Cam- 
bridge, England, and receiving a diploma from the Royal College of 
Physicians and Surgeons, London, and the best medical schools on the 
continent of Europe, he soon obtained a position in the British army in 
India, congenial and lucrative, rose high in his profession, accumulated a 
handsome fortune, and allied himself by marriage with an excellent fam- 
ily. What, the reader will ask, could have driven such a man to this 
out-of-the-way corner ? Alas, what are birth and fortune, talent, edu- 
cation, and advancement, when the wine-cup has obtained the mastery ! 
An insatiable thirst for strong drink soon unfitted him for the duties of 
his profession, for society and the enjoyments of home, and on the death 
of his wife, which occurred soon after the birth of a daughter, he be- 
came a wanderer — his property and child cared for by legal provision — 
and died amongst strangers ; as a fool dieth. died this courteous, genial, 
refined, and talented man, remembered only for his follies and lost oppor- 
tunities. 

Considering its natural advantages, Eau Claire has afforded better op- 
portunities for enterprising men of limited means to establish themselves. 
in business, than almost any other locality. At other points the most 
eligible situations became early absorbed by individuals or organizations 
who supposed their interests would best be subserved by excluding others; 
while the first settlers of Eau Claire held out all the inducements in. 
their power to all who had the boldness to invest their means and ener- 
gies in any undertaking that would enhance the interests of the place ; 
which, more, perhaps, than natural position, has induced a large number 
of active, intelligent business men to locate there, and hence, aiiite a. 
number of these sketches will recount the early strggles of what may ap- 
pear a larger proportion of its prominent citizens. 

DANIEL SHAW. 

To no single individual, perhaps, is the city of Eau Claire indebted 
for the development of its resources and the establishment of its most 
important industries than to him who is the subject of this sketch. He 
was born in 1813, in the town of Industry, Franklin county, Maine. 
He chose the business of lumbering for a vocation, and located first in 
Alleghany county. New York, where he was quite successful, but wishing 
to enlarge his sphere of operations, came to this State and reconnoitered 
the Chippewa pine district in 1855, and the year following, having, in. 



188 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

company with Mr. Clark, father of Dewitt C., purchased a large amount 
of pine land on the Chippewa river and its tributaries, came with his 
family. 

His location at the outlet of Half Moon lake was induced by the as- 
surance that logs, when once in there, would be perfectly secure ; the 
booming and assorting works he was less confident of, and the disasters 
attending the operations of the first and second years were not altogether 
unexpected, but the terrible collapse in business afi'airs throughout the 
West and the almost total prostration of the lumber trade immediately 
after he commenced operations, was an unlocked for calamity, and al- 
though he worked with untiring energy, and took upon himself hardships 
that few business men could endure — always superintending the drive in 
person, and on one occasion carrying one hundred pounds of flour forty 
miles in a day on his back to feed his men, success seemed for a long 
time beyond his reach and the struggle against adversity unequal : but 
having associated Mr. C A. BuUen in the business with him, the firm 
finally succeeded in establishing their business on a firm basis, when in 
1867 the mill was consumed by fire, which once more brought discour- 
agement and almost despondency ; but capital was now more abundant, 
and by taking Messrs. Newell and Ferguson into the firm, a much larger 
and more perfect establishment was erected, and in 1874 the concern was 
incorporated with the title of Daniel Shaw Lumber Company. 

Few men have been happier in their domestic relations than Mr. Shaw, 
though bereaved of a very promising son in 1863, The two surviving 
sons are model young men in filial regard for their parents and their at- 
tention to business, the result of sound moral and religious training at 
home. 

Mr. Shaw worships at the Congregational church, though more liberal 
and advanced in his religious views than the tenets of that organization. 
And in politics, he is a steadfast Republican, but has always refused po- 
litical preferment and the seductive influence of office. 

SIMON RANDALL. 

A lumbering country, especially in its incipient settlement, offers very 
few situations for any one to get a living without work ; there are few, if 
any, easy positions ; whatever one gets he must work for, and those who 
come without means, only their hands to help themselves with, must of 
course work for some one who has got a start. Simon was of this class, 
who, with his brother Greorge, came up the Chippewa in June, 1840. 

Simon was born in the town of Baldwin, (now Sebago), Cumberland 
-county, Maine, in 1817. The strongest, healthiest, and most robust of 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 189 

a hardy family, he prided himself more on his physical ability than upon 
his intellectual acquirements. Other members of the family were proud 
to be at the head of the class at the Centre school house, he cared not 
who was at the head or foot, nor whether his lesson was learned or neg- 
lected. His stay in Muscatine county, Iowa, to which place he and 
G-eorge emigrated in 1838, was too short to deplete his energies with fever 
and ague, and on their passage up the Mississippi, the boat having landed 
at Wabasha to put off a large amount of pork, and being short for help 
on deck, the two brothers offered their services, and instead of rolling 
the barrels over deck and gang-plank, they seized them by the chimes 
and carried them ashore and uj) the bank with as much ease as the deck- 
hands carried kegs of nails. These displays of strength sometimes ex- 
cited the envy of his fellows, but his good nature and free and easy way 
made hioi a great favorite amongst the boys, and few could tell a story 
with a better zest or more telling effect on the crowd. 

It was natural that a young man of such a temperament should fall 
readily into the ways of his associates, and the lessons the boys first 
learned on this river were not calculated to improve their morals or raise 
their aspirations for something Ibetter ; the example and influence of some 
of the business men then on the river being very pernicious. 

In any industrial pursuit or department of business, to rise from the 
condition of a common laborer to the management and successful prose- 
cution of business for one's self, requires pluck, energy, economy, and 
persistent endeavor ; but the lumber business of that early day, when 
stumpage and titles to land were unknown, though replete with hard- 
ships, required less capital than at present, imd the two brothers, after 
more than a year's struggle, took out their first raft, which was sold in 
Muscatine — lumber and pine logs being almost the only commodity that 
would sell for cash in that market at that time. 

Availing themselves of credit, which was freely offered, they extended 
their operations, and in 1846 formed the partnership with Allen & Bran- 
ham elsewhere referred to in this work, and after its dissolution became 
the principal factor in building the first mill in Eau Claire, only to see it 
carried away by the flood the next day after it started, together with 
piers, booms, and ten thousand logs. Credit had been used to the ut- 
most to accomplish this, and heavy liabilities remained — a clog and bur- 
den upon all succeding operations. But over all these difficulties pluck 
and perseverance finally triumphed, and a fair competence, if nothing 
occurs to prevent, seems likely to relieve the anxieties of the downhill of 
life. 



190 CUIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

NELSON C. CUAPMAN. JOSEPH G. TIIORP. 

It very frequently happens, especially in new countric- that enter- 
|)rises are commenced by parties who find themselves inefl&cient or 
wanting in business capacity to conduct them when more fully developed. 
Of all the varied business pursuits in which luen engage i:i this country, 
perhaps none require more ability and active energy to conduct it suc- 
cessfully than the manufacture of lumber ; and the original settlers and 
operators on the Eau Claire began to realize very soon their inability to 
fully develop the resources of the situation, and to invite men of capital 
to visit their premises, with a view to sell. 

Unable to command the moans to purchase the interest of Gage tv 
Heed, Adin Eandall, who came to Eau Claire in the summer of 1855, 
obtained a bond for the transfer of the property at a fixed price and ap- 
plied himself to find a purchaser, and, by chance or fate, came in contact 
with and made the acquaintance of the gentlemen above named, then 
operating in real estate at Clinton, Iowa, which led to their investment 
here and identified them at once with the growth and development of 
Eau Claire and its surroundings, and made their names conspicuous 
throughout the Northwest. 

Nelson C. Chapman- was born in Durham, Green county, New York, 
in 1811. The death of his father occurring when he was quite young, 
his education was limited to such as the common school of that period 
could bestow, and at the age of sixteen he went into the store of Benja- 
min Chapman, in Norwich, Chenango county, where industry and fidelity 
won him the confidence of his uncle, and he was taken into the business 
as partner at the age of twenty. 

Here he remained, the house doing a successful business until 1846, 
when he removed to Oxford and became a partner with J. G. Thorp, un- 
der the firm name of Chapman & Thorp, continuing in business with the 
latter until the time of his death in 1873, which occurred in St. Louis, 
to which place he removed in 1857, conducting the business of the firm 
with signal ability in that city, where he was regarded as a prominent 
citizen and thorough business man, being chosen president of a leading 
railroad corporation, and elected to many important positions under the 
city and State governments. 

Joscpli G. Thorp was born in Butternuts, Otsego county, New York, 
in 1812, was bereaved of both parents at the age of fourteen, and for 
three succeeding years continued to work on a farm, receiving such cooi- 
mon school education as he could acquire in the winter scas-on. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 191 

la 1829, he obtained a situation, on trial, in the store of Ira "Wilcox, 
a thorough merchant of Oxford, Chenango county, New York, where he 
remained until his majority and three years after as clerk at a good sal- 
ary, when, in 1836, he was given a partnership under the name of I. 
Wilcox & Co., which continued ten years, when Mr. Wilcox sold his in- 
terest to N. C. Chapman, and thus was formed the firm of Chapman & 
Thorp, their business being carried on in the same place, Oxford, until 
1857, when it was removed to Eau Claire, Wis. Thus we see that Mr. 
Thorp was twenty-seven years in the same store and place, having risen 
from a boy on trial to a partnership in a prosperous business, and the 
credit of the firm was now fully established. Mr. Thorp married Miss 
"Chapman, sister of his late partner, who was allied by marriage to the 
Messrs. Gilbert, since so well known in this State. 

Sufficient capital had been accumulated in 1855 to make investments 
in real estate at Clinton, Iowa, without affecting the business of the house 
in Oxford, but their transactions here soon called for all their means, 
having closed an engagement with Qace & Reed for their property, at 
forty-two thousand dollars in May, 1856, and soon after bought the entire 
property of Carson, Eaton & Downs, on the Eau Claire. 

Quite an amusing incident grow out of the contract with Grage & Reed, 
the payments being in installments — gold being plenty and commanding 
no premium when the bargain was made, no stipulation had been made to 
satisfy the claims in anything else — but before the last fell due, money in 
any shape, but especially gold, had disappeared utterly throughout the 
West, and few people hereabouts, Grage & Reed among them, believed it 
possible for so much gold, nine thousand dollars, to be obtained in the 
United States, and the payees having signified their determination to re- 
ceive nothing else, looked confidently forward to a foreclosure, but when 
the day came were astonished to find the whole sum ready, principal and 
interest, in American gold. But those were days that tried men's souls, 
and however successful as merchants this firm had been, they, could not 
but realize that as lumbermen they lacked the experience necessary to 
command success ; however, they were fairly in for it and must go on, 
as heavy liabilities had been incurred, and now the value of credit and a 
good name was to be fully tested, which, with pluck and untiring perse- 
verance, carried them successfully through the crisis while thousands be- 
came bankrupt. In ten years all these difficulties had disappeared and 
large accessions been made to their real estate, when, by act of incorpor- 
ation, the Eau Claire Lumber Company was organized jwith a paid-up 
capital of or.e hundred and sixty thousand dollars, now worth tea times 



192 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

that amount, the head of which is Joseph G. Thorp. 

Mr. Thorp has filled many positions of trust with honor to himself and 
advantage to the public ; was several years a member of the county 
board, and shares the credit of ferreting out delinquencies in the man- 
agement of its funds, and of raising the credit of the county which for a 
long time was fifty per cent, below par ; has been twice elected State Sena- 
tor, and was a delegate to the convention in Philadelphia that nominated 
Grant and Wilson in 1872. Having traveled extensively in Europe, he 
has now returned to business and the enjoyments of private life. 

In answer to my inquiries, he says ; "My experience froni my boyhood 
up leads to this opinion as regards my success. "When a boy I was lazy, 
and if I had had anything in expectancy to rely upon might have made 
a worthless fellow. Necessity showed me only one way to be anybody, 
and that was to establish a good character. Trusting in God, I have 
succeeded. My motto has been, and my advice to all young men is, al- 
ways honest, ever plucky, and your word better than your bond." 

In politics, Mr. Thorp was formerly a Clay Whig and since a steadfast 
Republican, and in religion a sound Presbyterian. 

HON. HIRAM PEASE GRAHAM. 
I 

Modest and unassuming, without parade or ostentation, this individual 
has raised himself to positions of trust and honor, and acquired distinc- 
tion among men by positive merit. He was born in Windham, Green 
county. New York, March 29th, 1820 ; received a common school edu- 
cation ; learned the trade and for several years followed the occupation 
of millwright. The first steam mill erected by Chapman & Thorp was 
built under his superyision. Mr. Graham has held various local offices, 
was for five years general inspector of lumber for the Chippewa district, 
was elected the first Mayor of Eau Claire in 1872, and State Senator for 
the Thirtieth district in 1873, but he is one of the men that office has 
sought, and being a Democrat has on more than one occasion been the 
only hope of his party in the district or city — his own popularity electing 
him against overwhelming Republican majorities. Though by no means op- 
posed to the war measures of the Government during the rebellion, it 
was a matter of surprise and regret to many of his best friends that a 
man of such influence and high moral worth should adhere so tenaciously 
to a party whose prestige and success could only in the very nature of 
things afi"ord comfort and inspire hope in the enemy's camp, and thereby 
serve to protract the war. Conservative in all things, it must have been 
a great sacrifice of party fealty to find that he could no longer be true 



CHIPPEWA TALLEY HISTORY. 193 

to the Government and yet follow the dictum of his party leaders, but 
throughout the entire war there was not the remotest suspicion of hia 
want of loyalty to the country, and as an individual he performed with 
alacrity his duty to the Grovernment. A life-long Democrat, accustomed 
to regard the policy and principles of the party as next to infallible, it 
was a far severer test of his patriotism than if his sympathies had always 
been with the party now wielding the Grovernment. Mf. Grraham was 
emphatically a War Democrat, and as such exerted a powerful influence 
against the re-aetionary measures of those who favcre 1 the Ryan Ad- 
dress. In this respect he represents a class, and I have chosen him as 
one of its most prominent representatives. 



CHAPTER XLV. 



MR. AND MRS. LORENZO BULLARD. 



Few persons in private life are better known than this veteran couple; 
the former from Wayne, the latter from Genessee, county, New York, 
where they were married in 1833. Came to Menomonie in 1847, with 
Captain and Mrs. Wilson, where for fifteen years they shared all the 
hardships of that early period. Mrs. Bullard was one of the patriotic 
women who called the first war meeting in this valley, and walked over 
the battlefield of Gettysburg in quest of her boy Eugene, who was 
wounded in that fearful ''ouflict, while the battle was still raging in the 
distance. 

As an operator in the lumber business, in which Mr. Bullard engaged 
in 1848-9, he does not seem to have been very successful, but as host 
and hostess in a hotel, first in Menomonie and for twelve years at Reed's 
Landing, in Minnesota, they won a reputation second to none and ac- 
quired a handsome competence for old age ; have purchased an elegant 
residence in the city of Eau Claire, where their son Eugene located after 
his return from the war, and where peace and plenty bid fair to crown 
the days of their long and useful lives. 



194 CHIPPIWA VALLEY HISTORT. 

GILBERT B. POBTIB. 

A Boldier in a regiment of hussars recounted the many battles he had 
taken part in and produced tegtimonials of his valor on many a hard- 
fought field, and added, "For this, Colonel v^as promoted to 

brigade commander, and for this, General was made commander 

of division." But how happens it, I remarked, that you performed so 
muoh for your country, served so long and bo faithfully, and are nothing 
but a private soldier still, while so many others are advanced to high po- 
sitions by your valor ? "Well," he answered, "all those had fathers or 
uncles in Parliament, or other powerful friends at headquarters to give 
them a boost, and so they got in ahead of me." And such is the secret 
of advancement and good fortune to a great many, perhaps most, men 
who attain high position in the world. 

Not so, however, with the subject of this notice, for he had nothing 
but his own unaided efforts and indomitable energy by which to climb 
the hill of distinction. He was born in the town of Freedom, Cataraugus 
county. New York, July 6th, 1829, but his boyhood and youth was 
spent in a heavily-timbered, unhealthy district of Michigan, whither his 
father removed in 1836, and being too poor, as he says, to return, Gil- 
bert, being the eldest of the children, soon became inured to the toil and 
hardship of clearing up a farm in the woods. At the age of eighteen he 
obtained a clerkship in a store, and by as.siduous attention to business 
was permitted to attend one term at Albion Seminary, where he made 
good progress. 

In 1856, Mr. Porter came to Eau Claire in the service of Chapman & 
Thorp, having entire charge of their business the first year after their 
purchase here — a very laborious and trying position for one so young. 

In the year 1858, Mr. Porter furnished a small amount of means to 
assist Mr. Charles G. Patterson in starting the Eau Claire Free Press, a 
Republican newspaper, in Eau Claire, an enterprise of very doubtful 
success, and Mr Patterson soon became discouraged and induced Mr. 
Porter to take the unpromising thing off his hands, which, as the politics 
of the county and valley were largely Democratic, induced him to feel 
that he had a pretty large elephant to manage, especially as he knew 
nothing of type-setting or the business of printing, but ho had pluck, 
energy, perseverance, literary taste, and a nice discrimination ; and, not- 
withstanding all those difficulties, soon made the Free Press a power in 
the land — one of the best country papers in the State. 

Its succe.-s and zeal gave Mr. Porter the appointment of Register in 
the United States Land Office at Eau Claire, which position he held for 



CHIPPEWA TILLBT HISTOIT. 195 

almost nine years. Being threatened at one time with dismissal if he 
would not "Johnsonize," he r»pli»d that he would not hold the office a 
moment on such terms, and if his minions wanted it they could take it. 
The columns of the Free Press while edited by Mr. Porter, exhibit but 
few lengthy, labored articlos from his pen, but as a paragraphist he was 
pointed, terse, and sometimes witty. Mr. Porter gave convincing proof 
of his business capacity before he engaged in the manufacture of lumber, 
as the following anecdote, related by himself, will show. "For several 
years the Free Press was the official organ for Eau Claire, Dunn, Pepin, 
and Chippewa counties, the legal advertising for which, and especially the 
enormous tax-list of the latter, created a good deal of envy on the part 
of neighboring journals, and repeated efforts were made to start a paper 
at Chippewa Falls, but I always found means to discourage such attempts 
or to buy out the concern before the public patronage was bestowed upon 
it." The destruction of the mill owned by Porter, Brown & Meredith 
utterly discouraged the last named partners ; not so with Mr. Porter ; 
he knew the mill-site was a good one, and the means to rebuild in his 
name alone was soon proffered, and as president of a great lumbering 
corporation or as Mayor of the city of Eau Claire has displayed marked 
executive ability. 

H. C. PUTNAM. 

Few men have been more fortunate in their business relations than this 
gentleman. He was born in Madison, Madison county. New York, 
March 6th, 1832, was a graduate of an engineering school at Cornwall, 
Conn., and adopted the profession of Civil Engineer. Came to Wiscon- 
sin in 1855, and worked in that capacity one year on the Milwaukee & 
Prairie du Chien railroad; thence to Eau Claire in May, 1857, with a 
capital of only two thousand dollars, which, by judicious investment, 
and the salary and perquisites of several local offices to which he was 
soon elected, he was soon able to establish himself permanently in the 
real estate business. 

But the most fortunate position, perhaps, that he ever secured was 
that of principal assistant in the United States Land Office while Messrs. 
Porter and Bartlett successively held the office of Kegister. It was here 
that he laid the foundation of an immense fortune. As agent for East- 
ern capitalists, many of whom remitted him large sums for investment ; 
he has the reputation of never having made a bad location, seeming to 
know by instinct just where lands were likely to rise in value, and fre- 
quently to secure an interest without investing his own means. His 
name is introduced here not because he represents a class, but because 



196 ' CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

he and his operations are an exception to all other operators in the same- 
line in this part of the State. 

STEPHEN MARSTON. 

In the person of this individual, the old Pine State furnished another 
J rominent operator in the settlement of this valley. He was born in 
Kennebec county, Maine, in 1821 ; came to Eau Claire in 1856, making 
the journey in a one-horse buggy, with his wife and little daughter, and 
averaging sixty mUes per day. The year following he visited Cincinnati 
and returned to Eau Claire_,with seventy-five tons of merchandise — the 
heaviest invoice of manufactured goods ever ordered for this locality at 
that time. As a merchant he was honorable and obliging, and so well 
adapted to the wants of this community was his assortment of goods, 
that he was proverbial for keeping everything that other dealers failed to 
supply, which in a new country was a very groat convenience. 

Succeeding in 1860 to the ownership of the Randall saw and planing 
mill, door and sash factory, — the latter for several years being the only 
one in operation in the valley — he availed himself of the facilities these 
offered and invested largely in building on both sides of the river, his 
hall over the post-office being for some years the only one in the place, 
and his own sumptuous residence denotes taste, refinement, and culture. 
Mrs. Marston claims the honor of bringing the first piano to Eau Claire. 

He hela the office of Postmaster from 1863 to 1871, and although his 
business precluded him from personal attendance, he saw that his assist- 
ants were courteous and obliging. During the war he was active in pro- 
curing enlistments, and did much toward filling up the various companies 
recruited here. In 1872 he was the candidate on the Greeley ticket for 
Representative to Congress in the seventh district, leading his ticket in 
eight out of eleven counties in the district, including his own. 

GEORGE A. BUFFINGTOX. 

Oataraugus county. New York, furnished another active business citi- 
zen for Eau Claire in the person whose name heads this notice. He came 
in 1856, run a livery, kept a hotel, and in 1859 bought Mr. Ball's inter- 
est in the mill owned by the firm of Smith & Ball, West Side, formerly 
one of the Randall mills, and for fifteen years was the resident managing 
partner in the firm of Smith & Buffington ; is now at tho head of a cor- 
poration known as the Valley Lumber Company, and Mayor of the city 
of Eau Claire. 

ISAAC W. SHELDON. 

Came from McHenry county, Illinois, in 1855, and settled on a farm 
in the town of La Fayette, Chippewa county. 



• CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 197 

Witli a somewhat limited common school education, he possesses busi- 
<ness qualifications that have raised him to a fair competence and distinc- 
tion among men. 

For the past twelve years he has resided at Chippewa Falls, has twice 
been elected Mayor of the city, and shares the esteem of his fellow citi- 
zens. He is now successfully engaged in merchandising. 

JOHN F. STONE 

Was one of the first settlers of Augusta, in Eau Claire county. He 
erected a saw and grist mill at that point on Bridge creek in 1856. As 
one of the proprietors of the village, he pursued a very liberal policy 
and afforded assistance to a great number of farmers of feeble means, as 
one after another located in the fertile valleys around him, and upon 
these, and all others who have made homes in the village and surrounding 
country, to a certain extent stamped the impress of his own unsullied char- 
acter, so that Augusta has ever been noted for its moral, ^religious, and 
social advancement. 

Mr . Stone's religious convictions accord with ^those of the Baptist 
-church, of which he is an exemplary member. 

0. H. INGRAM 

Is a born lumberman, and what he don't know about the business is 
not worth knowing. He came to Eau Claire in 1856, in company with 
Messrs. Dole and Kennedy, the former of whom soon retired, and the 
firm have since done business under the title of Ingram & Kennedy. 
They were previously operating in Canada, whence they migrated to this 
river, and the hard times which followed the crisis of 1857 'taxed their 
resources to the utmost, and before fully recovering from the difficulties 
of that trying period, their mill was consumed by fire. 

Mr. Ingram is the financial and general manager, and has always 
maintained an unblemished reputation as an able financier and straight- 
forward business man. Socially, he likes a good joke, and is not always 
very particular at whose expense, but his feelings are always kindly and 
his employes are always treated with consideration and respect ; which 
secures their confidence and esteem, as the following pithy incident will 
attest. Some two years ago a little girl about seven years old came one 
forenoon to the residence of the writer, crying bitterly, and saying she 
had lost her^way to Mr. Ingram's Eddy mill, having left Shawtown on 
foot early in the morning. Having quieted and refreshed the little thing 
with a lunch, I proceeded to place her on the right road, and to cheer 
her up made many inquiries about herself, and amongst other things told 
her I had seen Mr. Ingram an hour before on his way to the Eddy mill. 



198 CHIPPIWA VALLBT HI6T0BT. 

Her face instantly brightened, and full of animation she exclaimed : "Oh, 
I wish I could have seen him, for Mr Ingram is a good man ; my papa 
works for him, and he is a good man." 

Mr. Ingram owns mills, stores, and Lank stock, and enjoys all the dis- 
tinction that wealth and position can bestow, but dearer by far must be 
the tribute paid to his goodness by this little Scandinavian girl ; and the 
brightest jewel in his diadem when he shall have finished his course will 
be the testimony of his workmen that he Hs a good man — for she but 
echoed the voice of the hundreds of menjn his employment. 

B. p. WILSON. 

Having so often referred to this gentleman in the body of this work, 
little can be added here, especially as he has failed to give me the neces- 
sary data. 

As one of the proprietors of the village of Eau Claire as first platted, 
he succeeded beyond his expectations. His temperament is hopeful — 
almost too sanguine — and his faith in Eau Claire and its future is bound- 
less. 

It is not given to all men to be successful in their undertakings, and 
Mr. Wilson has seen his purposes frequently fail, but he still works on, 
and is confident still that there is a good time coming. 

WILLIAM CARSON. 

Ever since the year 1839 the little crooked river which takes its rise 
in the big woods that divide the Chippewa and St. Croix valleys, known 
as the Eau Galla, has been thejtheater of action for an emigrant from 
Upper Canada of the above name who at that early period settled upon 
its banks, and is undoubtedly to-day the only person in the Chippewa 
valley occupying the same premises as a home that he then occupied. 

Accommodating himself socially and domestically to the peculiar cir- 
Jlimstances with which he has at various periods been surrounded, he has 
witnessed change after change in the development of the country, and 
transfer after transfer of the premises of other operators in the same 
business, even his own partners selling out and soeking more favored lo- 
calities as they imagined, but he has kept right on in the even tenor of 
his way, cautious and conserative, carefully husbanding all his^resources 
and prudently investing his accumulations, he has succeded beyond all 
who came to the valley with him in building up a fortune and a name. 
As a common laborer ho was faithful and diligent, and is now literally 
realizing the promise that "he who is faithful over few things shall be 
made ruler over many things." 

Surrounded by a numerous and amiable family and all that wealth. 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. ] 99 

taste, and refinement can confer, the retired spot that has so long 1 een 
his home must be dearer!?to him than any of the great marts of tra^^e or 
the most attractive centers of fashion. 

Lawyers, it is said, are a necessary evil, but on the principle that 
opposing evik correct each other, society is compelled to tolerate a good 
many of them — there being so many other evils in the world that many 
of these not only exist but attain distinction and honor among men ; and 
quite a number are found in this valley, some of whom came so lorg ago 
as to make their lives historic, and like all other men in a new country 
had a pretty hard struggle to get started, and are proper subjects for 
these sk'^tches as p ominent actors in all our stirring events. 

The profession wt^i poorly represented at first in this section, but a 
bad beginning sometimes makes a good ending, they say. 

The first was a wild Irishman, Patrick M. McNally, who came to 
Chippewa Falls in the summer of 1854 — was advised to locate there by 
Judge Fuller, and for want of something better was immediately retained 
by H. S. Allen & Co. as their regular counsel, whii h enabled him to 
make the two ends meet. 

How baleful is the evil example of a man placed in high position ! 
It is an undeniable fact that a large majority of the practicing attorneys 
in Judge Fuller's circuit contracted the bad habit of drinking to fearful 
excess during his term — even carrying a demijohn of "Old Bourbon" 
with them as they followed the Court from Tone shire town to another. I 
could name more than one who in the prime of life has gone down to a 
drunkard's grave, the incipient cause of whose fall could be traced to the 
bad example and pernicious influence of that erring judicial functionary. 
P. M. McNally, Greorge Mulks, and H. Clay Williams died as a fool 
dieth, and these are far from comprising the list, to say nothing of those 
who barely escaped. 

The Greggs, father and son, came next, the former a man well versed 
in law, and on one occasion he aspired to the judicial ermine, but the 
people thought otherwise ; his habits and character were too well formed 
to be led astray by the prevailing vice referred to above, but the son suc- 
cumbed and has removed elsewhere. 

HON. W. p. BARTLETT 

Is a native of Maine, was born September 13th, 1829, graduated at 
Waterville College in that State in 1853, taught school and studied law 
until the fall of 1855, when he came to Wisconsin, arriving in the State 
October 1st, was admitted to practice in Jefi'erson county in 1856, and 
came to Eau Claire the next spring, 1857 — the first lawyer that settled 
in Eau Claire county. 



200 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

Perhaps it was because the youthful attorney refused to resort to the 
same measures to get on the right side of Judge Fuller that some others 
did, that he failed to secure favorable recognition ; indeed, it was appar- 
ent to every one who attended his court when Mr. Bartlett was managing 
a case that the rulings were invariably against him, which made it up-hill 
work for the young barrister. But he worked on in spite of these and 
many other discouraging circumstances with a zeal, energy, and industry 
that showed conclusively that neither Judge Fuller nor any other Judge 
could always keep him down. 

If as a pleader he has not always satisfied the expectations of his 
friends, he seldom fails to impress a jury favorably, and in examining a 
witness he has no superior for skill and tact on this circuit — perhaps, I 
may say, in the State. 

Mr. Bartlett has held several positions of trust and honor ; twice 
elected to the Assembly, in 1860 and 1872 ; was six years district at- 
torney for Eau Claire county, and one term County Judge, and now 
holds the position of Register of the United States Land Office at Eau 
Claire. 

Mr. Bartlett has alway taken a deep interest in the cause of educa- 
tion, especially the common schools of Eau Claire ; having been elected 
a member of the School Board within three weeks after he became a res- 
ident of the district ; and it is to his energy and efficiency in some de- 
gree that the Second and Third ward school, now and for twelve years 
past conducted by Mr. Rowland, owes its high standard of excellence and 
usefulness. 



CHAPTER XLVI, 

Pioneer life exhibits peculiar habits and phases of character and 
amongst others the disposition to rove ; to move from place to place be- 
comes a ruling passion with a certain class, and a retrospect of the com- 
ing and going sliows that many of the early settlers in every locality in 
this valley have found homes, or are still roaming, elsewhere. 

From Chippewa Falls, Wm. J. Young, afterwards a member of the 
Nebraska Legislature and now editor of a prominent paper in California; 



CPHIPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 201 

John Judge, for two years one of the most prominent men at that place 
and secretary of the Chippewa Falls Lumbering Company, now in the 
South ; Judge Whipple and Andrew Gregg, lawyers and bankers ; D. 
Skinner, at one time County Treasurer and a successful merchant ; the 
Masons, father and sons, and the Grilbert brothers, from Yellow river : 
from Eau Galla, Henry Eaton, of the old firm of Carson & Eaton : 
from North Pepin, Hon. Benjamin Allen, State Senator and Colonel of 
the Sixteenth Kegiment : and from Eau Claire, Drs. Ketchum and Day 
and Col. Chas. Whipple are now on the Pacific coast ; Hon. N. B. Boy- 
den, counsellor at law and first Receiver in the United States Land Office, 
and now Municipal Judge in Chicago ; John Wilson, in Montana ; Rev. 
W. W. McNair, in New Jersey ; C Howard, a worthy citizen, the first 
and for a long time Register of Deeds in Eau Claire, and now Postmaster 
at Osage Mission, Neosho county, Kansas ; Peter Wyekoff, a very suc- 
cessful merchant, now of New York ; and Hon. Horace W. Barnes, for 
many years a prominent member of the bar in this judicial district, and 
many others who made their homes here at an early day, are now scat- 
tered over the country from Maine to Oregon. 

Death, also, has claimed two of our prominent and esteemed pioneers. 
Hon. A, K. G-regg, an eminent member of the bar at Chippewa Falls, 
died in 1867, and Hon. Rodman Palmer, formerly of the same place, 
land agent and dealer in real estate, an upright man and much honored 
citizen, died in 1871, having previously removed to Eau Claire. 

Of those above mentioned, one claims more than a passing notice, as 
a self-made man who, in spite of early privations and discouraging cir- 
cumstances, made for himself an honorable name and acquired a compe- 
tence and distinction. 

HORACE W. BARNES 

Was born in the town of ColesviUe, Broome county, New York, in 
1818. His boyhood was spent in the family of an uncle who settled in 
a dense beech an^ maple forest, in Medina county, Ohio, where he lived 
a life of constant toil, without one day's schooling until his majority, 
and Shakespeare's lines would then forcibly apply to the youthful Buck- 
eye. 

"This boy is forest-born, and hath been tutored in 
The rudiments of many desperate studies." 

How many men famous in American history, have laid the super- 
structure of their education and built up an honorable name from such 
rough materials as poverty and the adverse circumstances of pioneer life 
always impose ! There seems to have been something inspiring in the 



202 CHIPPEWA TALLET HISTORY. 

grand old woods where the early days of many of our most distinguished 
men first saw the light ; and in overcoming the many natural obstacles 
always encountered in new districts, high aspirations and a determination 
to achieve grander results take possession of the hardy backwoodsman 
and frequently leads to victory, honor, and fortune. 

These feelings inspired Mr. Barnes, and with indomitable energy he 
set himself to earn the means to educate himself. By the most rigid 
economy and assiduous attention to his studies, he acquired a good En- 
glish and mathematical education and considerable proficiency in the 
classics at Oberlin Institute, Ohio. Acquisitions that he utilized in 
teaching and surveying until 1852, when he commenced the study and 
practice of law, in which he soon won distinction as a sound legal ad 
viser and laborious faithful advocate. 

As a pleader, Mr. Barnes displayed qualities which, if not always in- 
suring his own success, were well calculated to quench the ardor and 
paralyze the force of his adversary. 

Carefully noting, as the cause proceeded, the points which his antago- 
nist intended to make, he would anticipate him and tell the court and 
jury precisely what his opponent would say, frequently using the exact 
language in which it would be clothed, and emasculating the argument 
of all point or power before it was uttered. He felt defeat intensely and 
seemed to sufi'er even more than his client the loss incurred by any want 
of skill or foresight in managing a suit, and hence in all civil suits was 
wary and cautious, always exacting a full, impartial statement of the case 
from his client before taking it, and not then unless the evidence, justice, 
and a reasonable prospect of success justified it. 

In serving the public, no matter in what capacity, his industry and 
perseverance were untiring, and he shares with Mr. Thorp the honor of 
exposing frauds in the accounts of the Eau Claire County ^jTreasurer and 
of restoring the credit of the county. 

Mr. Barnes came to Eau Claire in 1858, 'and was elected l>istrict At- 
torney the next year, 1859, and County Judge in 1865 ; was a member 
of the Legislature in 1861 and 1867. In politics, was a steadfast Re- 
publican, and during the war zealous and active in carrying forward any 
and every measure for its prosecution. 

In his friendship, he utterly ignored position or caste, and wherever 
he found what he considered a true man, he was his friend ; but scorned 
obsequious or patronizing airs, and was sometimes so impolitic as to pre- 
fer blunt honesty to assumed gentility. In 1872 he removed to Oswego, 

Kansas, with his family, where he now resides in the practice of his pro- 
fession. 



CHIPPEWA TALLBT HISTORT. 203 



ALBXANSBR MEGGETT 

Is probably so well and bo widely known that only for^posterity can I 
say aught that will interest my readers. But all may not know that he is 
a son of toil ; that in his boyhood and youth he worked in a cotton factory 
in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, to which place his father emigrated in 1827, 
from Glasgow, Scotland, where he was born in 1824. By his own ex- 
ertions he acquired the means to defray his expenses for a year at 
Wilbraham Academy, and by close application to study, fitted himself to 
enter Middleton University, Connecticut, where he managed to support 
himself one year ; was a teacher in the public schools for ten years, and 
then studied law in the office of Hon. C. B. Farnsworth, of Pawtuxet, 
Massachusetts, and Hon. Thos. A. Jencks, Rhode Island ; was admitted 
to practice in the State courts in 1853 and in the United States Oircuit 
Court in 1856. His first settlement in "Wisconsin was in Milwaukee coun- 
ty, where his half-brother, Hon. Arthur McArthur, presided, but Eau 
Claire, then just growing into importance, attracted his attention and he 
made his home here in 1857. 

Says John Neal ; 

Language is the power. 
The only omnipresent present, 
^V hereby man holds communion with his Gel ; 
Wherehy he does imperishable things. 

* * * The outlet to a mine of wealth 
And of power ten thousand times more precious than the earth 
Glittering with diamonds and charged with ore 
That man, short-sighted man, would perish for. 

This power Mr. Meggett certainly wields and uses as few men in this 
part of the State can. Not alone as a lawyer in the line of his profes- 
sion where as a pleader he perhaps has no rival in the circuit, but in the 
arena of politics, religion, social and moral improvement, reform, science, 
and the arts. With attainments so diversified and a felicitous adaptabil- 
ity of speech to every department of thought and knowledge, he is per- 
fectly at home in any assemblage and almost invariably the chosen expo- 
nent of its views and behests. 

A large practice and strict attention to the duties of his profession has 
enabled Mr. Meggett to accumulate a handsome competence and to de- 
vote considerable time to social and intellectual enjoyment. Brief ex- 
tracts have been made from the remarks of Mr. Meggett on two occa- 
sions — at a war meeting and a religious festival — to which, as indicating 
the versatility of his genius, I will add a few passages selected from hie 
addresses on other occasions. Smith vVhittier, now of Chicago! IllinciiJ, 



204 CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 

!)uilt the second hotel which was erected in Eau Claire, which he called 
the "Metropolitan," and which was opened with a dance, superb supper, 
speeches, and congratulations, one evening in September, 1857. Mr. 
Meggett was one of the latest accessions to the place but was selected as 
spokesman of the occasion. 

After a few preliminaries, he said : "Ladies and gentlemen, Your ex- 
periences in Western life have already taught you how quickly our sym- 
pathies spring into vigorous life in a new country and unite man with 
man and heart with heart that under other circumstances would each 
have known only self. 

"It is these common sympathies that have brought us together to-night, 
and in the absence of some things incidental to a more mature develop- 
ment grown aristocratic with age and boasting of its refinement, where 
€nvy, pride, selfishness, all luxuriate, no fair one here to-night will have 
her peace of mind destroyed by the bitter reflection that her crinoline is 
less beautiful than that of some fancied rival. (Uproarious applause). 
No, ladies, everything here is too fresh from Nature — from the hand of 
God — to permit the growth of these pernicious weeds, so thrifty in the 
soil of a more mature civilization. * * * j rejoice as a 

citizen of Eau Claire in the freedom and equality which characterize the 
festivities of this occasion, with no aristocracy of wealth, position, or 
dress, to mar its joys." 

Elsewhere in this work it is stated that Mr. Meggett was chosen to 
welcome the visitors to Eau Claire when the advent of the West Wiscon- 
sin railway was celebrated in August, 1870, a brief outline of his ad- 
dress being given. It was an able and comprehensive statement of the 
growth, prosperity, and resources of Eau Claire and the Chippewa val- 
ley ; a few paragraphs from which without the risk of repetition may 
find a place here. 

"While so much may be justly said of ourselves as the metropolis of 
the Chippewa valley, we must not forget the claims and virtues of the 
sister counties and cities within its limits. They are most excellent 
neighbors of which equally good, but, perhaps, not quite as many great, 
things can be said. In some respects much our superiors, and having 
citizens equally enterprising and public-spirited, were it not for our ad- 
vantageous geographical position we might have to compete with some of 
them for the palm of being the commercial center of this valley. As it 
is, however, we altogether form a great people in a great valley, with 
power and resources sufficient to make our influence felt in all matters of 
public concern." 



CHIPPEWA VALLEY HISTORY. 205 

In his intercourse with men, Mr. Meggett is more than genial, he is 
jovial ; and one would not suspect that bereavement had repeatedly in- 
vaded his household ; twice has he been called to follow the wife of his 
bosom to the grave, and on the 22d of August, 1864, a promising son, 
then his only one, the child of his early love, met with a fatal accident, 
being accidentally shot while taking a loaded rifle from a wagon at Bridge 
creek. He had recently come from Rhode Island at the age of later 
boyhood, very intelligent, and justly his father's pride. It was a grievous 
affliction, but borne with Christian patience and fortitude. 

And now, no longer a disconsolate widower, but a happy husband and 
father, Mr. Meggett's declining years bid fair to be peaceful and full of 
honor. 

The foregoing bi'ief sketches, though undoubtedly very imperfect, em- 
brace the principal points in the lives of such of our distinguished citi- 
zens as have not been set forth in the preceding chapters of this work, 
quite a number of whom, including the members of the firm of Knapp, 
Stout & Co., of Menomonie, and T. C. Pound, of Chippewa Falls, it 
ivas thought required no further personal illustration. 

And it will be seen that almost every one of our most active successful 
business or professional men have been reared in comparative obscurity 
and trained in the school of toil and hardship, and by their own exer- 
tions raising themselves to positions of trust, honor, and affluence. 

In the medical profession, three only of the early comers remain, all of 
the allopathic school. 

The first was Doctor McBean, formerly from the island of Jamaica, 
West Indies; came to Chippewa Falls in 1856, entered the Union army 
as physician and surgeon in 1862, and served till the close of the war. 
The other two, Drs. W. T. Gralloway and F. R. Skinner, hail from the 
same Alma Mater, though as difi'erent in every trait and characteristic as 
two men can be, came to Eau Claire in 1857 ; the former a demonstra- 
tive politician, a Democrat, appointed by Buchanan Register in the 
newly-created Land Office ; speculated in village lot?, mill property, and 
lumber, and then returned to his profession, where an extensive practice 
awaited him, and wherein he has been very successful. Judiciously in- 
vesting its avails in manufacturing and other village property, he has ac- 
cumulated an estate that yields handsome dividends. He is still distin- 
guished for his skill as a physician and surgeon, and as a leader in the 
Democratic party, though now less demonstrative than before the war. 
The latter is the son of the late Reverend Doctor Dolphus Skinner, a 
highly distinguished Universalist clergyman of Utica, New York ; a 
auiet, unobtrusive man ; came to Eau Claire the same year, 1857, and 



206 CHIPPEWA TALLET UI3T0KV. 

started the first drug store ia this valley. He, too, has acquired a 
reasonable share of this -vorld's goods, and is a much re>;iected citizen. 

Continual changing in the local whereabouts of the clergymen who 
have labored here, has taken most of the early incumbeuzs beyond the 
writer's observation. 

Reverends McNair and Phillips, frequently referred to, were co-labor- 
ers and students from the same theological school, and their churches 
here were established, and for some years partly sustained, as Presby- 
terian missions of the Home Missionary Society. The diversified reli- 
gious views of the first settlers, and the feeble, struggling condition of 
many or most, precluded the possibility of any denomination being able 
to organize a self-sustaining church at the early period when the subject 
of the following sketch came to Eau Claire and organized the first church 
in the Chippewa valley. 

Rev. Alberoni Kidder was born in Wardsboro, Vermont, February 
14th, 181-1, the youngest but one of a family of eight sons and six 
daughters. 

Having been educated for and chosen the profession of the ministry, 
he received license to preach in 1847, and commenced his ministerial la- 
bors at Alexander, Genesee county, New York, the year following, and 
was ordained as pastor of the Congregational church at that place in 
1849. 

A revival that added seventy to the membership encouraged his labors 
here. At other points where he subsequently preached his zeal was re- 
warded by greater activity in, and large accessions to, the church. 

In September, 1856, he was invited to visit Eau Claire by a former 
member of his church, who had previously migrated thither. The bar- 
room of the Eau Claire House, then just enclosed, was the only room in 
the place large enough to accommodate the audience, in which, by invi- 
tation, he held religious services, and was requested by many devout 
people to remain and organize a Congregational church and society. 
During the ensuing winter, these services were continued in bar-rooms 
and private dwellings, Chippewa and Dunn counties visited, and religious 
instruction given where the Gospel had never before been heard. His 
church in Eau Claire consisted at first of seven members, the nucleus of 
what is now one of the most flourishing religious organizations in the 
West. Much credit is due Mr. Kidder for the zeal with which he urged 
forward the completion of the church edifice, which was dedicated in 
185l>. 

Having resigned his pastorate, he was elected in 1863 County Super- 
intendent of Schools, a position which he ably and satisfactorily filled for 



CHIPPEWA VALLKT HISTORY. 207 

seven years and three months — one term to fill a vacancy occasioned by 
the resignation of Prof. S. A. Hall. An account of hia subsequent and 
contemporary pastoral labors in Augusta, Bloomer, Mondovi, and Du- 
rand is given elsewhere. 

It is hoped that no one will be offended at the freedom with which the 
character and conduct of the parties are discussed, whose personal his- 
tory is herein placed before the public. 

And now, though unconscious of intentional error in any statements 
herein made, should the reader discover discrepancies, let the mantle of 
charity cover any mistakes as due to the head, not the heart. 



THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 754 936 2 • 







